Without knowing why, your mother digs,
\nunaware and unconcerned with the cuts
\non her palms, or with her nails peeling back,
\nor with the way her fingers begin to bend,
\ntwist, resemble roots it appears she\u2019s unearthing
\nfrom the ground. And after digging for hours,
\nafter enduring the gashes and punctures,
\nshe finds a hand, severed cleanly at the wrist,
\nand adorned with rings that once had some
\nsignificance, but which now, as your mother
\ntakes them off, have become objects
\nshe can barter the desert with, one for shade,
\none for water, one for a sign that the farther
\nshe travels, and the more the sun boils her flesh,
\nthe closer she is to something she can hold,
\nsomething that no longer feels out of her grasp.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Without knowing why, your mother digs, unaware and unconcerned with the cuts on her palms, or with her nails peeling back, or with the way her fingers begin to bend, twist, resemble roots it appears she\u2019s unearthing from the ground. And after digging for hours, after enduring the gashes and punctures, she finds a hand, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[66],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4ib","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16507,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503\/revisions\/16507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}