2 poems
By Robin Gow
We are bodies in his father’s garden
He put cherry tomatoes in my mouth
one at a time. I watched each
as they entered—passed the threshold
of crooked teeth. Each fruit glowing
a slightly different color—permutations of red
and orange—some kind of rounded fire.
Texture of small wet seeds on the tongue.
Wrists left bare to the dusk. I’m telling you
he made me into a bursting and I told him
to lay down too as we looked up
past the vines and the apricot tree
and the asparagus too soon to be picked.
In the garden all the seasons coincided.
The apricot tree experienced winter
and summer in the same minute.
He picked berries growing from my hair
and fed them to me. He hovered
over my chest like a bee and I told
him to touch my skin. I told him
to push me into his mouth.
I told him the show me all
kinds of red
in my own skin.
Kneeling in the Soil
I ate strawberries while he picked them,
placing each into a metal bowl.
My boyfriend’s fingernails were round:
oval dinner plates. I watched them work
not knowing how close and how far
you can get to another person.
The first ones falling like dull bells—
soft ringing of the bowl. Blue jays
shouting at the strings of tinfoil hanging
around the patch to scare them off.
What it must have been like for those birds
to watch each day as the strawberries grew
red and bright—berries pulling
green curtains of leaves around
their nakedness. How all fruit
asks us to consider what parts
of our bodies we will feed to each other.
How each afternoon—each morning—
each round sun—is also a body
to be peeled. How he peeled me there
down to just my teeth and my tongue.
How now I don’t know the texture
of his hands and don’t want to.
I eat strawberries from the fridge
and maybe there is no garden
in his yard and maybe he doesn’t remember
kneeling. I don’t remember what
we did with the berries in the bowl.
Maybe back to his house. I want to pretend
we ate them all and got sick from
the sweetness and the seeds.
I perch like a blue jay in a tree
and shout at him though
he doesn’t grow round or red.
Robin Gow
Robin Gow is the author of the chapbook HONEYSUCKLE by Finishing Line Press. Their poetry has recently been published in POETRY, New Delta Review, and Roanoke Review. They is a graduate student and professor at Adelphi University pursing an MFA in Creative Writing. They is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets and Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. Their first full-length poetry collection is forth-coming with Tolsun Books.