Bless the scabs and eyes black
as watermelon seeds.
Bless the heads bleeding, anointed
like green mangoes’ red ripening over their crowns.
Bless the sprouts breaking
through their own skin and the soil above.
May we learn how to communicate
with flowers, speak
the language of bees and signal molecules
to learn what it is the Earth makes names
of, the true names we utter in synapse
and sleep, the names we’ll never not know.
May we live like drops of blood invigorating
the soil with our nitrogenous being,
soaking with transfigured glory
the remains and the loam
of a world desiccated by invisible, mundane villainy.
May we grow like starlight at the beginning of time.
Where is the god of rhizomes,
the god who invented them, that we might learn their secret?
Dominion and creation are different, my loves.
What do you want to know?
How do we grow something new?
You’ll want to speak with King Solomon,
but you won’t like the answer.
Grow grow grow! We won’t stop growing!
Yes, my children. As long as you love to grow.
Amen.
-Lex Kim Bobrow
Lex Kim Bobrow is a mixed race Korean writer from South Florida. He is the editor of The Toxicologies Letter (toxicologies.org), aimed at making the internet a little less lonely. His work has been published in Synaesthesia Magazine, Saw Palm, Prairie Margins, and more. His debut chapbook, ‘The Boy with a Sledgehammer for a Heart’ is available through Finishing Line Press or on Amazon.