From the book:
I Started with Waffles and Honey
Come, walk with me
to a land where honey grows
inside combs like—waffles
or wheat wells, made of richer things than
water—is a sky for river salmon.
Dandelion seed pallets float along the top
like constellations, like Aquarius;
like Ursa Major—world disasters:
ballerina sand dooms,
volcanos vomiting inferno,
earthquakes
that broke the world in sectors
like honeycombs
or waffles
or my grandmother’s hands in January
when she forgets to lotion them.
The lotion smells like sweet walnut
or a tart vanilla.
Vanilla
Vanilla vanilla vanilla vanilla
Where can my mind go with vanilla?
What rhymes with vanilla—what looks like vanilla—
what sounds like vanilla
when I scoop a clunk of vanilla ice cream with a spoon?
Dirt. Dirt sounds like vanilla.
The morning my mother tried planting a garden at our new house
and scooped the sandy minerals of soil, and white-bodied grubs,
and rocks that clinked the shovel like a porcelain bowl does a spoon
when you eat all the vanilla, re-earthed grass, worms, beetles sometimes,
and just dirt.
My mother planted Baby’s Breath, wisped and birthed,
And green Bells of Ireland—
bells like a telephone call, or that ringing your ears get
and you get paranoid;
Ireland like whiskey or dry Guinness beer
or freckles, freckles like constellations—like Ursa Major—
like floating dandelion seeds—like river salmon—like water—
like wheat wells—like waffles
—like honey.
Jessica Simonetti is a second-year law student at the University at Buffalo School of Law. She has her Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and English Writing. Her poetry has previously been published in Canto Magazine, Poppy Road Review, Black Poppy Review, and Inside the Bell Jar. She has recently completed a historical fiction novel, called Men of Marigolds, that she is currently seeking a publisher for. After graduation, she plans on pursuing family law or human rights law as well as continue her creative efforts writing poetry and fiction, specifically within the genre of historical fiction.
The Gravity of Earthly Things
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