my body’s history is sharp like the splinters of a broken fencepost
by Danielle Rose

set aside for mending / but i want it to become a thing growing / more like a sunflower or an empty plot of land / or this the way i dream of reaching into the forest for a poem / So instead of sleeping i think about root systems spreading / & how to weave myself like interlocking fingers between them / i want to touch something ethereal & always speaking / because this body sings a quiet arson / & it is too much like desiring desire / sometimes i believe i am a calculus that solves nothing over & over 

& so fucking what / the fence is still broken / & i am left calculating / how to become a plot of soil / to grow a field of answers

when the day breaks i think of myself as a frayed string ever weaving
by Danielle Rose

but i want to become a metaphor like pollen or spreading roots / the way a sunrise can be felt from behind a window / this heat is a memory we mistake for the smell of cotton / because what is a beginning if not freshly laundered sheets / a warmth that understands the discourse of crows / sunrises like a broken nail still sharp but useless / i want to desire something more suffocating / like how to stuff my mouth full of distress & not scream / this window is a way to keep things separate / install walls & contain our secrets / because sunrise whispers gossip & quickly forgets that harm is a pupa / things that emerge like the sudden appearance of a prairie / lush grasses / the reflection of building a body from all these guilty concealments / like wooden planks hammered into a shelter

the human body contains enough bones to construct a complete skeleton
by Danielle Rose

& it is a lie to say that women have one additional rib / that they were raised from the earth / sculpted in a garden like how we hang tomatoes / & remember how these seeds are little pieces of the possible / asking what we desire of the things that grow inside of us / maybe a fireplace filled with the family songs / a line of rilke about bridges just off the tongue / & i talk about what i might contain / i spin seeds & spit something out / if i were an electrical socket i might call myself luminating / but there are over 200 bones inside of me & i cannot feel them unless they are broken / i could build a bridge from what i contain / just off the tongue a way to cross a dangerous crevasse / to sing songs & sew seeds / i want us to raise from the earth / become a question for mathematics like counting bones inside of a moving body / spinning like a sequin & then coming to rest / complete / i dream that adam was a liar & just wanted to feel less alone

Danielle Rose lives in Massachusetts. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Shallow Ends, Sundog Lit, Pidgeonholes, Barren Magazine & Glass Poetry