Silver Lace

The soil cool against my cupped palms, I cradled the root structure of the silver lace plant removed from its pot. Tiny white strings snaked around my fingers like scars in the dirt.

Seeds had gone into the same plot of soil together but were sprouted now: the plants needed more space, needed to be removed, needed distance from the encroaching roots of their brothers.

We sat around a picnic table outside the greenhouse and extracted the seedlings with silver spoons. Delicately, I dug my fingers through the dirt to untangle one root from the next without ripping them apart. The roots had to remain intact or the plants would die.

My hands have extra lines, creases dividing and subdividing my palms and fingers into separate territories so dirt sticks easily there.

I placed the silver lace, free of tangling roots, into its own new pot, tucking extra soil around the base, so the roots could grow, spread out like interstates across a map.