PHOTOSYNTHESIS
By Maya SalamehA poem revolving around the resilience and comfort to be found in daily acts of embodiment, and the homes we can make of ourselves even in isolation.
2022
poem
Full Text:
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
ripping grass from its stems &
orange blossom water & I stretch like syrup
spread over pancakes & blueberries &
sweaters riddled with ampersands
& the indigo of haunted
places & my body trembles in tectonic
style sometimes but by god
do I glow like the six-dollar stars
stuck to my ceiling & glossing diary pages
with date paste & how everyone’s pain
is the same color & dark-haired strangers & purple
LED lights & every element invented before
me & nat king cole & I am gorgeous all
the time & every war poem I’ve written
without picking up a gun & every
day I’ve been a gunshot wound & all the wounds
snaking my arms like henna or habeas
corpus & the cursive of my waist & how things
just kiss me