Body Love

by Kelsey Bryan-Zwick


my body loves its soft silences
equally its loud exhales. My body loves
moaning against my chosen partner
as it rains, as it sun shines, as it hazes over                                       
my body loves its escapes
like the involved concentration
in growing new flowers
the lost way I feel for soil
the crumpling of dried leaves
and unwanted snails

the discernment this body allows—
to choose this to pluck a plant to its death
to allow the grasses and clover to grow
to burn and water

I was born under one sign
yet can play with that besides fire

I water the sunflower my partner planted
how tall there now
I dig at the old-weeds planted two generations ago
without thought for the future
gather stones and crystals to bring to our home
I blow out the candles year after year
proving to faraway planters
the care it takes to still be here

to care temporarily for my little blip in time
so I can pass this space on to the next
so I can say this spot is cared for
so I can condense into my own grain of stardust
passing through hourglass

do not miss my long hair
miss me


* * * * *

Kelsey Bryan-Zwick (she/they) is a queer, disabled, bilingual, poet and a columnist for Los Angeles Poet Society. Disabled with scoliosis at a young age, their poems often focus on trauma, shedding light on this isolating experience. They are a Lead Collaborating Fellow of The Poetry Lab and founded the micro-press BindYourOwnBooks. Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net nominated, Kelsey’s forthcoming microchapbook, Bone Water (Blanket Sea Press, September 2021) and their first full-length poetry collection, Here Go the Knives (Moon Tide Press, January 2022), focus on their decades surviving with scoliosis. On the gram @theexquisitepoet and online at www.kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry.