The roots are thick
the roots are thick but the trapped
veins within are fragile; pulsing with blood;
with the venomous sigh of what it is
to have sight, through the soft walls of a
buzzing park, through the spindled caverns of
dirt that forge some wild web
deep below and deep beneath;
to the anomalies, the great grassy
plains of ancestry that fold us in among
the rushes, the slow pools of identity
that creep like ashes and laced crochet;
patterns of DNA / that write maps
across the land, across oceans and continents;
connections, like so many roots reaching;
like so much heart pulled from a body;
flesh and bones and the scattered matter
of all that left a mark;
of that which pressed through the ages of time
with a sieve, a blanket of woven inheritance;
a tapestry without edge,
the definition defining itself;
the name chipping and curling with the cut
and raw edge of time
until it lands, in sinew and bone
across the momentary
whisper of biology;
your name, full of so many syllables lost
in the space between
Lauren Suchenski has a difficult relationship with punctuation. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and four times for The Best of the Net. Her full-length collection “All You Can Measure” (2022) as well as a chapbook “Full of Ears and Eyes Am I” (2017) is available from Finishing Line Press. Another chapbook “All Atmosphere” is also available from Selcouth Station (2022). More of her writing can be found on Instagram @lauren_suchenski or on Twitter @laurensuchenski.