FERN
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Your body springs back against me like a fairy moss lawn,
guiding me to green.
When I ask you what I should do with my life
you tell me to be heard, to be seen, to make the fall.
I try my best
to grow – instantaneous and rushing – through your life,
to curl against the golden spirals of your hips,
to seed close to your leaves,
to arch out, unfurling, under your fingers.
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TART
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I like it when a pansy's dangerous.
When Marsha threw her brick I imagine she did so with
flowers crowned around her, the scent of peaches burning.
Sometimes Daphne's juice is worth the taste and
sometimes cherry pits are kept aside for the mouths of those
who would speak out against us.
Imagine celebrating a nettle sting in bed, the irritant felt
by the girl you were told you should never love.
Imagine loving her more because of the danger,
imagine holding her hand so tightly in the street as you point out
dandelion, lavender, sycamore.
Imagine coming home to the hot capsaicin welts from hemp ropes.
Imagine knowing it will hurt in new ways all the time
until we all save bitter almonds for vanilla essence scolds
who tell us a fruit must always be sweet.
You don’t have to like sour grapes or poison gardens
but you’re not the ones under monkshood
looking for tartness, looking for honey, looking for spice.
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