using a shovel as a name tag

by Caroline Meek
Illustrated by Matilda Mel

I used a dictionary to bury

what I found

a new meaning of the word

Illustration by Matilda Mel

inhalation,

living

and choking

on the veins between your fingertips

and the palm of your hand

where you held

a lot of soil

that wouldn’t fit below

the surface of myself.

I am almost finished

reading about nouns

that didn’t mean

what I thought they meant.