I. Dress the table while I’m out with the cloth stitched in sideways sliced strawberries lay the sharpened swords whisking wands and Florida water for the wrists for the three gallons of rain required to make one tomato as red and ready as this II. Mince each morsel of carrot into a carrier pigeon to the heart bearing blessings from your childhood table the one with the wobbly leg and Sunday paper stains III. Pick and sniff the peach peel under your fingernails like perfume and drain the French press slow IV. Notice how a split open blood orange looks both like a pair of lungs and a pussy and recall there is more than one way to breathe V. Look at our life according to jars in cabinets emptied and stuffed with hours of ourselves homemade hand-pickled in a city where you see the seasons change not so much in the trees as in the coconut oil on our shelf VI. Open your skull like a pomegranate and rub your thumbs inside the ruby rind to remember you are not Persephone no you are only pleasure seeker with a mother VII. Stuff your sharp tongue down in your lip like dip and let loose the licker that thrusts hungrily into the night sky like honey so sweet we rub it on our tongues on our wounds on the names of our lovers VIII. Breathe and let 500 butterflies fall out with wet wings beating against your molars and let your belly hang out and your bowls overflow and whisk me away whatever you do whisk me away with you
Jordan Stanley (she/they) is a queer poet and content writer who loves to perform at open mics across Los Angeles where she now lives. She has pieced together her heart and found home in Boulder, CO; Brooklyn, NY; Boston, MA; Elon, NC; and Suffield, CT over the last 10 years. Follow her on Instagram @jaystanz for writing, sewing, cooking and baking enthusiasm.
South Broadway Ghost Society 