A Manual for Mutability

By Hannah Bonner

The rain comes intermittently, and I foster a deep assuredness within myself that this cooling current will bring forth fall. The browning Mullein, the Queen Anne’s Lace, black as pitch, also prophesize changing weather patterns, though I can regard plant life from my kitchen window without temperature or touch.

I often tell myself, when I look out the window, that this is writing, too. Some primordial part knows, admittedly, that I am not writing, and such candor destroys me, full stop. I walk into the world to transcribe myself upon a landscape so variegated and veritable I could be another wild matter in its midst: post-blossom, all ripe. I practice breath work in tandem with my steps and release the tension from my face, exhale by exhale. There is a large branch in the road, and I toss it into tall grass. I wonder, earnestly, if I am good.

Where the path diverges toward prairie, in one direction, and subdivisions, in the other, a tremendous puddle expands. Bugs quicken the surface. I hedge its edges, but my sandals are all wrong for this cavernous water, and I turn toward home, sliding my shoulders down my back, readjusting my palms so they open outwards like a manual in a sudden wind.

These adjustments are a form of editing. During one time in my life, I could not write at all. Now I am struck by the constant corrections. I press my thumb and forefinger together. The pulse proliferates.