The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota by Amelia Gorman

This selection, chosen by Guest Curator H.V. Cramond, is from Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota by Interstellar Flight Press in 2021.

Buckthorn

There is no catching the fruits that
shivered, quivered, and rivered inside you.
There is no eating back the bush—
not with the help of goats or swine,
not fried into buckthorn flour pancakes.

There is only you
reckoning sand,
counting the replicating drupes
until the numbers get too large.
Forcing your way
through the ecophagic wood
as it slavers, quavers, and slivers
inside you.

And soon there will be no you.
Just endless, reproducing
thorns.

Amelia Gorman is a recent transplant to Eureka, California where she enjoys exploring the redwoods and coasts with her dogs and foster dogs. Some of her recent poetry has appeared in Penumbric, Vastarien, and The Deadlands and her first chapbook, Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, is available from Interstellar Flight Press. Her weird fiction appears in the Nightscript series, Nox Pareidolia from Nightscape Press, and She Walks in Shadows from Innsmouth Free Press. Find her online at www.ameliagorman.com or on twitter at @gorman_ghast.

H.V. Cramond holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was the founding Poetry Editor of Requited Journal for 10 years. In 2018, she helped pass the Survivor’s Bill of Rights as the Illinois organizer for Rise. Recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Ignavia, death hums, Crack the Spine, BlazeVOX, Menacing Hedge, Adanna, So to Speak, Thank You for Swallowing, Dusie, Masque & Spectacle, Matter, and at https://hvcramond.com