Poetry

Blessings for the Use of New Houses

Where will we root
when we die? Root
the trembling of the heart, fainting
and swooning, and idle the worms
in the belly? Bold into the gold sunflower,
clockface. Bold into the drip paint
river mist Jurassic. Bold into the heart stop
heart won’t heart must.
Green all winter. Green all summer.
Giddiness and goatfoot, turn the brain and belly.
Cream plate of magnolia, heart and hunger,
and dance. And hallways and heart,
and woodfloors and heart,
and bright quilt mussed hot
and heart, and cat hair and heart.
Spiderflower, clockflower:
home fortune and cat tongue,
strong earth all surround.
Virtues of leaf, green painted gold.
Gemini owns the f lower double pawed—
there is no bitter herb to rob melancholy
from the heart and paint it.
Our root sends fortune and the earth takes hold.
Capricorn owns the earth and holds it.
There is no better dirt to wet spread wallow
and root until we die, trembling, fainting.

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Cover of TLR's "Big Blue Whale" issueAshley Roach-Freiman is a librarian and poet with work appearing in Bone Bouquet, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Smartish Pace, and Superstition Review. She co-coordinates and hosts the Impossible Language reading series in Memphis.

“Blessings for the Use of New Houses” originally appeared in Big Blue Whale (TLR, Summer 2016)