Bright Along the Body | Ashley Roach-Freiman

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Ashley Roach-Freiman is a librarian and poet with work appearing or forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, THRUSH Poetry Journal, The Literary Review, Ghost Proposal, and Superstition Review. More about her can be found at ashleyroachfreiman.com.

 

Blessing 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. Hallways and heart,
woodfloors and heart,
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 flower 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.
We own the earth and hold it.
There is no better dirt to wet spread wallow
and root until we die, trembling, fainting.