Organic

by Luna Vallejo-Howard 

Open your hand

the smell of a smashed silkworm

of a chewed mulberry leaf

of a snapped twig

the earth’s perfume launches

crawls into the psyche

wafts

nostrils scrunch

reminds us of a time

when we slid around on our bellies

ate dirt

or later when we mumbled

along to the crack of fires

shadows tossed against hillsides

bodies thumping

filling holes to pass the time

ringing

out from the music of the spheres

stomachs full of charred meat caught

with our own hands

blood from the kill on the rocks

smelling like the damp ground

and our own wet insides

like the earth’s come

spiraling through time

like a spiderweb

catching and suspending us all

~***~

Luna's poetry is featured in Volume 4, "Stardust."

To hear Luna read, come to our December 8th reading in Santa Barbara.

Luna Vallejo-Howard is from Santa Barbara, CA. She is in her first year of the MFA program in creative writing at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA.