"cakey" by Prachi Valechha
You, Earth by Koss
wanted you to stay I would keep you I wanted to keep you tethered to the world the earth
would keep you the sun would warm your skin the things we could count on: earth sun
water winter we could become our own perennials through nurturing together farmers
sowing seeds a watering all things green you planted that spring reduced the weeds for
future seasons that might include me you led me through gardens the plots of others
around you unseen buried earth so I too dreamed dreamed underground water River
Styx shamans’ swimming visions beasts through fall’s musty leaf-strewn spillways tiny
icebergs lucid zinc death sheets dreamed weeping sunflowers blackened stars magpies falling
dead from trees what we survived and greens tufts of sprawling lettuce strangeness of
strawberries fiery tomatoes with orange bursting veins cascading chains of freckled squash
fragrant heaps of herbs those normal growing things not meant to be as sleep groans into wake
your feet raven-stained from dirt held in my hands anointed with lavender coarse peeling
your loved feet I’d kiss ‘til the sun bled noon before the moon died and between before you
weeded yourself by the roots detached from stem shed skin a cruel garden untangled my
mandrake another singed field your eyes burned in cliffs as Saturn feigns his aureole of
light
would keep you the sun would warm your skin the things we could count on: earth sun
water winter we could become our own perennials through nurturing together farmers
sowing seeds a watering all things green you planted that spring reduced the weeds for
future seasons that might include me you led me through gardens the plots of others
around you unseen buried earth so I too dreamed dreamed underground water River
Styx shamans’ swimming visions beasts through fall’s musty leaf-strewn spillways tiny
icebergs lucid zinc death sheets dreamed weeping sunflowers blackened stars magpies falling
dead from trees what we survived and greens tufts of sprawling lettuce strangeness of
strawberries fiery tomatoes with orange bursting veins cascading chains of freckled squash
fragrant heaps of herbs those normal growing things not meant to be as sleep groans into wake
your feet raven-stained from dirt held in my hands anointed with lavender coarse peeling
your loved feet I’d kiss ‘til the sun bled noon before the moon died and between before you
weeded yourself by the roots detached from stem shed skin a cruel garden untangled my
mandrake another singed field your eyes burned in cliffs as Saturn feigns his aureole of
light
Koss is a queer writer and artist with an MFA from SAIC. She has work in Diode Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Hobart, Spillway, What Rough Beast, Five Points / Spoon River Review (forthcoming) and others. She also has a hybrid book due out in early 2021 by Negative Capability Press and work in the forthcoming Best Small Fictions 2020 anthology. Keep up with Koss on Twitter @Koss51209969, Instagram @koss_singular, and her website: https://koss-works.com.
Prachi Valechha is a freelance cartoonist and animator from India. Valechha loves to make Toons and Toons for Tunes.
You can find more of their work at: instagram.com/rainbowteeth
You can find more of their work at: instagram.com/rainbowteeth
