PHOTOSYNTHESIS

A 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