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What It Is to Eat

Posted on 01.20.21 by Alison Cantrell

Poetry by Birch Dwyer

My mother taught me that half-gallons
of ice cream were meant to be hollowed
out in one sitting, cantaloupe too, our spoons
a knife

against the rind, and that the raisins
in English muffins could be picked out one
by one, the fatty flour remains thrown
down the drain.

Now with a carton
of blueberries before me, I take you
one by one, hold each globe between my fingers
until I feel my own belly’s rise and fall, imagine
the plant from which you came hugging

the ground with leaves like
spears, purple and pregnant
against pine-needled soil.
Blueberry, I roll you

against my fingertips
until your purple stain
claims me, place you
upon my tongue, tart

to mild,
firm to soft,
our stories dissolving
into my tongue.


Birch Dwyer is a writer and workshop facilitator living in Portland, Oregon. She currently leads Poetic Medicine circles through Portland Women Writers and for Transition Projects. Her writing has been published in Clackamas Literary Review and Windfall. Birch makes her home with her husband and son and two dogs, one who likes to be rolled in a blanket like a burrito and the other who lies on the couch fully exposed, like an open-faced sandwich.

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