Cactus Blossom

Last revised
July 10, 2020
Published
July 10, 2020
by
Tec Teagan

I was born to a climate that breeds warriors. This is not 
my Darwinian logic, but wisdom shared with me by a kindred spirit, 
raised as I was, fighting up through the pockets in boiling gravel, 
bleached thin and strong under the furious eye of the Western sun. 
He asked me about my roots and I told him of the shallow clay 
that couldn’t hold them. Arizona in the blood, running thin 
down the cracked banks of long-dried creeks. Familiar desert 
flora growing up mean, made of spines and needles and burs, 
short roots and bodies built to wander.

Ours was not a giving soil. 

We did not meet in our shared homeland, but spotted a likeness 
some miles off, recognizing a greed in our respective  skins, sucking 
moisture out of the muggy air, choked on the luxury of plenty after years 
of drought. Unexpected companions on an accidental pilgrimage to 
this place, where we learned the pleasures of liquid abundance. 
The desert did nothing to earn our loyalty, but still in this time of feast—
glutted on afternoon showers of warm summer rain—we praised 
our memories of famine. Funny, that we two tumbleweeds should follow 
the same hot currents to the same far coast. You’re an asshole, 
he explained, when I asked what spine or needle or bur had spoken 
my origin without my consent. Teddy bear cactus looks soft to the touch 
but it bites hard, hooks in deep, leaves a scar. No magnolia blossom 
or sweet jasmine vine could do so much damage. I took it 
as a compliment and told him he was an asshole, too. He knew 
his needles well, and we laughed together because kindness sat,
sweet and strange as water in each of our parched throats.