LIT

four poems

i. beets fermenting in a jar, week one

o, sucrose taproot of vulgaris, purr to me in burbles of hydrogen the aching heartbeat of betanin and ginger rhizome as that brine like cloyed residual from wound tides over a cap of cabbage leaf.

you are a necessary and godly preservation.

orange zest tango with lactic acid, the means of your survival, as in, salt as resilience. your yeast communing through cheesecloth pores with spears of carrots on the shelf below, shaking whiskey bottle or quarts of kraut, the koji firmed acorn tucked into a dark pantry corner.

rox tells me how she admires the futurity in my projects with time frames. long-term endeavors essential for those wellacquainted with fancies of brevity— like years ago when we were one as i huddled in my duvet under growlight, your humble & flawed messenger. controlled rot a source of self-pickling, salvation in microorganisms when the only open ears live in inanimate things & an audio recorder. the next room over, i am held in saline bath; a daring bud of caper from the land we once called home— whisper it, barbarbietola.

soil to lactobacillus, you’ve graced me in endless pursuits of meaning, a rooted tangibility in your detroit red badger flame and chioggia. soothe me from inside out, nourish my breath—

this is my promise of reciprocity: to carry your seeds, sow & thin & weed keep your breath ebullient in pH dropping we’ll dance as we did in the august that saw my heart as crimson shards illumed by blood moon.

i can pretend like nothing ever hurt

but emergence of your burgundy shoulders.

ii. red maple

you explode onto the scene as a riot of scarlet searing paradigm burning like a needle thru nipple, stigma / stamen blown prickling lick the wound clean, pollen cauterized by tongue as march ash of ice dissipates

a flurry of abjection, finger cut on a can of crushed tomatoes the blood won’t staunch arms leaden heavy with the flow

sap runs fast from the sugars and your sweetness of inflorescence is as divine beloved, you are flustered ubiquity, my ignorance hitherto a striking oversight limbs akimbo kindle flames into the spring rain you’re hurtling off to mars the planet red who touched your mouth, deep delicate as a twining fury of some sanguine showers i’ve never pricked you before, ruby-stunned empress, call me a traitor

red for fortune, marry me and forgo the white for fever florid swallow the ceiling with wine from cornelian cherries; hold me for ransom fay heartwood captive shatter bittersweet an invocation for lust/or/rage grenadine or cardinal, geryon shatter scraped knees and angry leftovers remain

iii. yellow: witch hazel/dogwood/pussy willow

it’s raining butter and cheer or, pussies and pups

fragrance assaults upon me a wall of serotonin smiling blown up my brain scaling stone wall to sneak a few boughs astringence & alchemy, screaming tannins yellow miracle the house holding your skeletal wafts dazzling fractals boisterous against bare branches, arrest all attention, plow through my ribcage furrows

my heart left my body, o willow how desperately you want to be alive firm wherever graft finds earth ophelia’s nemesis, or rather, opposite, rooting hormones something fierce bark of salicin aspirin salicylic acid for skin female catkin thread-like petals pluming something magic burst from silver-furred bracts hairs compose globular form hope a peppering of kisses won’t leave the stain of lips

admirable sunny sisters the asiatic dogwood movie theater popcorn machine overturned to carotene chartreuse in the smallest possible snifter making way for berries that drop down burgundy tart ripening flourish of lemon dominion zesting spirals to rival a luminous ball of gas

iv. blue spruce

profound kin warm my blood i’m in love against the chill cradled me through the scarcity, the lean, steam of evergreen and boiling water if not for the blue i would have been gray numb void in which your fresh water bristled, full like a wash basin against a sleep-shadowed face stung to waking you kept me walking.

MARISSA ALFIERO B’2021.5 is probably stealing flowers from your yard & eating things off the street.