canopy//
I lay in the dark of my childhood bedroom, hungry
for a woman—for linked arms, grins with all our teeth,
and howling at a movie projector moon.
understory//
Here the moonlight spits through the slats
in the shutters and I am digested whole instead—
plucked into monomers and peptides. Sundew sermon.
Gaping swarm of atoms. Negative space woman.
shrub//
By this point I’ve learned my body down to
the plaque between my cells: algal blooms, dead
sturgeon, annelids churning earth. What a shame
about her daughter, a godless girl-lover.
herb//
A faceless ghost
floor//
Call me what you want: (1) peat swamp girl
(2) pulpwood creature (3) salamander eater
(4) detritus demon (5) the type of person
a decent girl should never take a compliment from.
corneum//
The fact is I’m tired of lying, of counting
the layers in my skin like I am being stolen.
lucidum//
granulosum//
I want to know what it’s like to be pared
and savored raw. Anger and all.
Wine flesh. Plum mouth. Wolf woman.
Sacred in a way that is very much not.
spinosum//
I want to sprout unfiltered mouths from
my face; slick, shameless & indubitably
lovely—they’d call me debutante, wife of
man, family girl, head of tongues.
basale//
In my dreams I walk around New York
labeling things: radius, hummingbird,
tomato, pearl onion, Central Park, eyeball moon,
cracked rib. Can I ever speak my name?