Kristin LaFollette
Exigence
The rhizome,
the collection of roots—
Branches, new growth—
How can something so reliable
be bad?
The rhizome,
identity like a seed,
all that is known
about the
ground.
If I am an animal, I only know it
because of the way I take root,
the way I count
the combination of
tendrils gained and lost—
My life—to obtain water…
How else could I survive when so
much of me is lost to the cold and
ice where
my body once was?
Someone spoon-feed me the flesh of fruit
saturated with granules of soil, nutrition
for nutrition—
My arrangement is different now,
but I must know—
Must know
how to make myself more like the things I dig up from
the yard,
the set of keys found near the telephone
pole at the end of the driveway—
Impervious to weather, yet full of rain,
no concept of anxiety
or loss—
Kristin LaFollette is a PhD candidate at Bowling Green State University and is a writer, artist, and photographer. She is the author of the chapbook Body Parts (GFT Press, 2018) and has had her writing featured in the anthologies Ohio’s Best Emerging Poets (2017) and America’s Emerging Poets 2018: Midwest Region. You can visit her on Twitter at @k_lafollette03 or on her website at kristinlafollette.com.
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