Jen Karetnick

so dense it doesn’t float

I’ve been reduced to not being able to stand up in the shower

poetic, considering how much

the wood has given to ocean travel

Even reading a book is challenging and exhausting

an escaped ornamental

pruned to maintain a narrower profile

I don’t understand what’s happening in my body

the leaf is made of more

than one leaf-like part

Every day you wake up and you might have a different symptom

from a distance

like clouds of purple

I’ve had messages saying this is all in your head

as the non-native is not invasive

at the northernmost range

I understand there are so many unknowns

not so easily warped by humidity

or temperature changes

As a patient, I need acknowledgment

as a generalization, then,

it suffers from a reputation as slow

It has gotten better, but I track that trajectory in weeks, not days

similar to pomegranate seeds

either one is a worthwhile endeavor

Being a survivor is something you must also survive

of knots and thorny greens, purge

my gums until all my words run clear.

When expecting the hoe to strike

glacial till at any time, nerves numb;

blood performs its prickly retreat. Still,

every evening the news is an attack.

Politicians eschew masks, fidget with

faces as they broadcast our sacrificial

itineraries. Nurseries shut down but no

one plants the guts of peppers, the punky

eyes of potatoes, crowns of half-rotted

pineapples. Cyclists ride and ride, heads

bared to the sun, so many early melons.

The smog clears but plastic mountains

peak. There’s marrow to harvest here

if only I were keeping such bones to roast.

closed, it pumps pallid circulation,

resists the serrated knife of consumption.

Where is the grace to gentle our children

who ache to catch wild cobalt in untethered

arms? Whose elevated longings we hear

on a pitch that intensifies with the strength

of the season, the insistent changing of tides?

Pried open, this country quivers in a curry

of tears. An altering liquor to filter. A rampant,

permanent burn.