Ice Plant

posted Apr 9, 2013

I confide: sand will be sufficient. Rocks.
You'll root easily, hardly desire
water – take only the necessities,
cuttings.

Love is all. Love, and you're golden.
Have that, and you won't fuck up
this baby, you won't avoid your spouse's eyes
over brunch. You'll brunch.
Squalling nighttime wakings
won't change you.

I flatter. I lie.
You are glowing,
I purr, like uranium glass
under a blacklight –
trace amounts
permeate all you touch.

Dana Koster is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her poems have appeared in Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cincinnati Review, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. She lives in the California's Central Valley with her husband and young son.

Koster’s poem “Nautilus” also appears in this issue.