Terrarium Poem
Racing at infertility
I urgently buy plants
research hot obsessing
what survives a black thumb
what won’t kill a black cat
She’s too cute
to eat with sense
I’m too cute
to want a child
so I redesign, I nest
blood urgency mistaken
as green life, cat life,
love life fills my womb
and thirteen possible models
of the same exact toilet
I faint from art deco
encaustic cement tiles
while my cranky cycle
defies arithmetic
but if the plant is spiky
and lives in a jar
safe from the black thumb
safe from the black cat
if the plant is spiky
can it draw my lost blood
if the plant’s in a jar
can it clean my dead air
how many plants
how many days
in this black expanse
of dwindling tides and time
my creative grand gestation
is beautiful perfected
space
to be alone.
THRILLED this poem will appear in S/tick's upcoming issue, 4.2 www.dontdiepress.org/stickmag/