This is a hand-embroidered work of mine of a bee balm flower from my sister's garden. Bee balm is a rhizome, and so we can count on its spread even if we do not see this happening. The word "balm" in its name makes me think that having faith in some kind of underground networks, repair, spread of life is where it's at these days. The repair in the substrate, which gets spliced and repeated, like a thing that grows, is important as well. A scar being a portal into a new awareness, a new embellishment, the thread acting like handwriting. And there is embroidery itself: an incredibly organic, time-infused, growing art form that is extremely portable, easy to learn, and is just like poetry in that we take an everyday thing—thread, like language—and use it to make something extra, decorative, utterly necessary.