Joelle Barron
All summer I’m growing: sugar snaps,
raspberries, fat tomatoes streaked red
and green. Plants are easy to love. My dog
stretched out on the spruce-shade lawn
is easy to love. Flutter in my belly
might be you, might be gas. Too early to tell,
but every night I drip milk. I don’t think
I love you yet. You make me barf. Lemon,
bay, spearmint; if you can smell
what I smell, will you love it? Sage, bush,
beans, walls of clematis. You’re the size
of a mango now. You have genitals. Your guts
are full of tarry black. I must love you,
things you make. What will I make
after you? Tiny lemons dot the tree.
Rhubarb, how it can be poison and dessert
at once. One day I’ll make stepping stones
with your hand prints. Your time inside me
like the summer, half gone.
Joelle Barron is a poet and writer from Fort Frances, Ontario. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia in 2014. Her poem, “A Girl Like This Might Have Loved Glenn Gould” won The Malahat Review’s Open Season Award, and her short story, “Dawson City, YT” was longlisted for the CBC Canada Writes Short Story Prize. Her work has been published in ARC Poetry Magazine. You can read her blog at joellebarron.com.
