Behold: kali tragus, the Russian thistle. A bushy lump of a plant, green flowers vanishing into green leaves. Its stem, striped red and violet as a bruised wrist. The leaves are lined with spikes, sharp like stitching needles. You are advised to wear gloves when handling it, if you must handle it at all. Should the thorns prick you, pretend you don’t feel it. It doesn’t do any good to gripe in times like these. There are worse wounds to be had than a thistle prick. Much, much worse.

The Russian thistle swells to life in the most arid climates. It thrives on disturbed land—flourishes in those places where a strange violence occurred. Among burned crops. Thirsty fields. Once-thriving farmlands ravaged by blight. Despite it all, the Russian thistle survives. Multiplies. It can grow between six and thirty-six inches tall. When it dies, it breaks off at the base and journeys across the earth, dropping seeds as it travels. The thistle moves like a living beast, rolling and waltzing in the summer wind, licking up dust, shimmying against the unhinged expanse of the land.

There’s a story people tell about a man back in Russia who was executed by the state. His head was severed. When the head thumped to the ground, it turned into a fat fox and ran out through the crowd of onlookers, out of the city limits, out into the forest where it lives to this day. The Russian thistle, it’s not so different—rent from the root and running, running.