solanum
-lindsay beth maruska

perhaps the sun small faces tilted upward burning rays & edges
don’t touch don’t stare don’t swallow tender tissue spread
easy pathways for poison calcining bone to wet rot perhaps the sun
& its corona of irradiated hurt perhaps the sun those bright
upturned flower heads following trails of light across the white sky
perhaps the sun sweet & deadly--

or solari, to soothe, noiseless gentle floral veils draped in care
over synaptic misfires perhaps the softest yield of skin the clean
ease of night perhaps to soothe to bruise light into quiet & close
those burning eyes perhaps to soothe psychotropic wonders
in a small hand filled with mild muted hue perhaps to drown
nervous burning in a hush of earth & tide--

perhaps both perhaps poison & cure.

solanum dulcamara
​- lindsay beth maruska

​i.
like painkiller piñatas streamed so bright & sweet
& inside the dark cedes gentle curves, pills & berries.

ii.
my face with its harsh angles
& the roundness of infestation--

cut yourself on my bones
& the child within me sucks marrow with an unformed mouth;

I can barely stand beneath the weight of sickness
& they say within me is planted

a miracle.

iii.
children hunting bright fields find candy-colored
light in little red packets, like those berries
had been sprinkled down by the sun while tender baby
skin bakes beneath the radiant hum, sky spread
with screaming insects, eating the gold edge
of the grass.

iv.
when they finally forced
my baby out of me I watched

blood pool around the tore-up
remains, bright & sweet

as wet sugar.

---

Lindsay Beth Maruska was born and raised in New Jersey. She has a graduate degree in World History but spends most of her time writing and tending to her many cats. Her work can be found in The Furious Gazelle and This Broken Shore.