This selection, chosen by guest editor Samantha Duncan, is from In Our Now by Valyntina Grenier, released by Finishing Line Press in 2022.
The Plant’s Eye
This is speculation I know but idol flowers have always born our mean-making scissors Consider scissors nature’s trope deploying astonishing devices The pitcher marooned and white not attractive unless you reinforce the species w/ a question of mimicry intended to scare Victorians An arc of corseted breasts crowned w/ clitoria Consider an insect evolved to conceive as female and male captivatingly from behind A frenzy of intercourse ensures pollination Our factory is olfactory tactile attention not just to simple chemicals signals so far as creatures are things to secure pollination or a meal
Valyntina Grenier is a multi-genre eco artist living with her wife in Tucson, AZ. She works with paint, ink, Neon, encaustic medium, recycled or repurposed materials and words. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the tête-bêche, Fever Dream/ Take Heart (Cathexis Northwest Press 2020) and In Our Now (Finishing Line Press 2022). You’ll find her work in Beyond Queer Words, Genre: Urban Arts, Impermanent Earth, The Journal, Lana Turner, The Night Heron Barks, Querencia, Ran Off with the Star Bassoon, and Sunspot.
Samantha Duncan is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Playing One on TV (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2018) and The Birth Creatures (Agape Editions, 2016), and her work has appeared in BOAAT, SWWIM, Meridian, and The Pinch. She lives in Houston.
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