This week's featured poet is Nina Parmenter. Nina's emotive work immediately engages the reader and offers keen insights from start to finish. Please enjoy "Upon Reading That You Share 50% of Your Genes With Various Fruits and Vegetables" (from Nina's collection, Split, Twist, Apocalypse), and "Strings" (with first publish credits to Fevers of the Mind). Thank you, Nina, for sharing your words!
Upon Reading That You Share 50% of Your Genes With Various Fruits and Vegetables
Now you understand
why you have always felt like a monkey’s lunch,
a tangerine in primate skin,
fructose and peely pith.
Now you understand
why you were plucked and hung high to ripen,
why you grind like a coffee bean,
why you sprout,
why you seed.
You, with your new-found insight,
can shine like a half-melon moon.
You can blossom like a turnip in the earth,
half mauve.
Because now you understand
why you are so a bit of everything
that you cannot fit it all in,
and yet, you are always
half.
why you have always felt like a monkey’s lunch,
a tangerine in primate skin,
fructose and peely pith.
Now you understand
why you were plucked and hung high to ripen,
why you grind like a coffee bean,
why you sprout,
why you seed.
You, with your new-found insight,
can shine like a half-melon moon.
You can blossom like a turnip in the earth,
half mauve.
Because now you understand
why you are so a bit of everything
that you cannot fit it all in,
and yet, you are always
half.
Strings
Yes, there are strings
wrapping our tight chests,
our temples, our pin-striped wrists.
Twisting, one-two, in a well-turned hitch.
Yes, there are strings,
curled in a flexing whip,
our skin waiting, eager and crisp,
for the coils that ping from the shadows.
Yes, there are strings
cracked in a lattice
from lip to purpling lip.
We scream. We are already swallowed.
“Who’s there?” we cry,
and we search for a purposeful hand
well-versed in the weave and the flick,
chasing strings
until they are tails
whilst our ankles
trip
trip
trip.
wrapping our tight chests,
our temples, our pin-striped wrists.
Twisting, one-two, in a well-turned hitch.
Yes, there are strings,
curled in a flexing whip,
our skin waiting, eager and crisp,
for the coils that ping from the shadows.
Yes, there are strings
cracked in a lattice
from lip to purpling lip.
We scream. We are already swallowed.
“Who’s there?” we cry,
and we search for a purposeful hand
well-versed in the weave and the flick,
chasing strings
until they are tails
whilst our ankles
trip
trip
trip.
Nina Parmenter lives in the Wiltshire countryside, where she splits her time between writing, work, and motherhood. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and web-based publications, and she has been nominated for the Forward Prize. Find Nina online at: https://ninaparmenter.com