The Worms

As a child, I loved summer rain only as much as its worms on the driveway, on the sidewalk, on the road where cars passed until the next morning, which would be sunny and dry and full of bodies. As if umbilical, two worms could be born— I had learned from classmates—by snipping one in half. So I too conducted no great experiment, only easy cruelty, my heart a knotted spool. Boneless and blind as a needle, needy and pink, worms have five hearts and live best unseen. On days purified by rain, I watch them thread out of black soil, scolding you aren’t meant for this world with the knife of childhood still stuck inside me. Inches from our haphazard boots, the worms continue to pay us no mind, silently weaving air into the earth’s torn lungs. Headless, thrashing, they cannot regenerate, of course, so it was one less worm I had made to do the thinking, the making of things from our scraps, our graves. One less child to reap this ungenerous world, each end of it burning.