2 poems
Inflorescence
On our first date, you asked me about the woods
of my childhood, my thoughts on god.
We both agreed that it was a complicated question and
a simple one.
Then we were picking flowers, pressing their benign
weight between pages. In the days
we waited, I showed you a small, handmade
book, one I loved for how easy it seemed
to put together. You told me if you take two pieces of clear
tape, the flowers would be preserved.
Some stems had broken off, and some leaves were more
beautiful than other leaves, so we placed
flower heads with other stems, leaves with other
flower heads, and pressed
Casting, Pulling
You tell me you make your own runes—
first you collect,
then you carve the symbol.
You use words on me,
words like engrave, divine.
Look, you say, casting the stones
smoothly over the table’s surface.
Close your eyes and feel.
I learn to choose.
We are three weeks old—
I want to pull the stone
that will tell me all about
love’s believing, that will articulate the process
of pulling, the way you
pulled pebbles from beneath
the water’s skin
because they felt right.
Brooke Sahni’s poetry and fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines such as Denver Quarterly, The Journal, The Cincinnati Review, Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of Divining (Orison Books, 2020), which won the Orison Chapbook Prize. She is from Cleveland, Ohio but lives in New Mexico.