Memento Vivere

Memento Vivere

Christina Baker

It may have been unkind
for the rosebush to prick me
but I shouldn’t have been surprised,
gardening gloveless, and in a hurry.

But to leave that thorn
in the back of my hand,
jutting out over the thin, blue vein
like a truncated IV needle—
that was cruel.

Cruel to remind me
of that week of tubes and needles,
fluorescent lights and five a.m. rounds.
As if the scars weren’t memory enough,
and I needed a memento mori:
a tiny, unfinished stigmata.

Or perhaps I have misread
the rosebush’s intentions.
Maybe it knows I need a reminder,
but of a different sort—

thorn plucked out,
one red drop welling up,
so I don’t forget the miracle
flowing just beneath my skin.

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Christina Baker
Writer & Homeschooler

Christina has been published in Channel Magazine, Joie de Vivre, Stonecrop Review, and Geez Magazine, and in the anthologies Darkness is as Light (Park End Books) and Homage to Soren Kierkegaard (Wiseblood Books). You can follow her close-to-home adventures at WhileTheyWereSleeping.com.

Photography by Fausto Marqués