Iconicity
We check websites
before labeling
the life cycle of a seed.
I don’t recognize the names
for anything.
In the red of the basement
I ask my husband,
‘Do you trust me
to learn the surfaces and
tunnels of your body?’
Our sundial is incomplete
we need to know
what day to put the garbage out
when the pinch
first surged through his core.
After the pansy seeds
germinate, our whole planet
trembles. I imagine
cancer. No name aligns
with anything I recognize.
Sara Sowers-Wills teaches linguistics and writing at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). She recently collaborated with her husband, a musician, in a performance at the planetarium on the UMD campus.