Stems once used as armor, teach me how to harden
with tenderness O evergreen perennial.
I carry you home with two 40 oz cervezas
& some real slim thick incense
named Renewal. I need to cover the decay
that belongs to the body of yesteryear —
the tissue fibers, sinew I tied up
in lavender-scented contractor bags.
I situated you in the south window of the studio,
shadows dilating in the direction of
my microphone, winking: Start with the voice
& the rest will fracture into place.
You remind of a time before my father passed:
in the syntropic groves of Hawai’i where
I labored myself through water fasting
under a mosquito net. Where I was taught:
bamboo culm snaps into particles
that can be inhaled, cut the throat like fiberglass.
I called him on a landline. He said, O I know,
don’t worry, take pictures. There I had a dream
that I could raise plant & cacti in crescendo
like a conductor. That my vision could be
so precise, so sharp with intricacies —
& be softened—by the brilliance of
a blade of grass. Now I look upon days
with rot, rotting despite the tropicals
that survived their UPS packages, survived
Midwestern winters under a spectrum
of blended light. One minute, one day, one year,
& I promise to piece together a semblance
of this life. Sing to my dad’s gravestone
as leaves turn green. Sing your cuttings to bloom.
— JUSTIN GROPPUSO-COOK
Justin Groppuso-Cook is a poet, musician, and healing artist from Detroit, Michigan. He received the 2021 Haunted Waters Press Award for Poetry and was a finalist for Black Warrior Review‘s 2022 Poetry Contest. His manuscript, “Illuminated Pupils”, was a semi-finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition and Tomaž Šalamun Prize. He is a writer-in-residence at InsideOut Literary Arts Project and poetry reader for West Trade Review. More information can be found on his website: www.sunnimani.com.