Lichen spores surface on the underbelly
of the branch you rolled over, like the blood
blooming on your cheeks with February’s bite.
A whole ecosystem at your boot:
the scuttle of the bark beetles savoring the wood
that softens like sponge, like the suds that trail down
my back. You catch the soap with your fingers
and they are bulbous monstrosities on your silken hands. The ice
at North Pond has begun to swell, slush yielding
to the touch of our mingling breaths, chatter
with the geese that extend their wings to flee
from the dog extending its own limbs
in swift pursuit. I ask you, how can such violence and such joy
exist together? Arrange our bodies on the tree’s
brittle legs, we split the flesh of a ruby pomegranate.
You bring the jewels to my mouth and ask me to bite,
and I oblige like the wind.
Anahita Kaman is a queer, South Asian poet from Chicago, IL. When she is not writing, she is tearing through a mango, crafting, or paging through a book with sticky fingers.