Her fingers tangle the ivy. Mahogany doors and bricks snag her scarf when she leans against them to look casual and pseudo sweet perfume dusts hallways. Casual leaves calluses on marble.

The interview is Turkish coffee, exotic and wished for – it tastes like the anesthetic she gargled before surgery last May. She’s finally here.

When they ask why, she explains, “I want to become…”

Apparently they hate loose answers.

Later she plants poppies through ivy, like fire and balsam.

Harvard wonders who started their garden. Photosynthesis shrugs.

She stands in petals, scarf snapping, things blooming from her mulch of rejection letters.