The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Honeymoon Shoes by Valyntina Grenier

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is from Honeymoon Shoes by Valyntina Grenier (Cathexis Northwest Press 2023).

Ecologue

What are this chaste
the in-charge rose
freshly longer stem
short green thorns
over potato vines
the squashy shade
slugs happy as lettuces
dug lamps in big leaves
staked in earth a cane
trellis the trailed pumpkin
yellow pods and green
bulging sunflowers
the tops of beans
paths and arteries
that’s my geometry
to burst the threatening fruit ripe
rampant anarchy of summertime
the end of always week’s end
a couple in the garden

Valyntina Grenier (she/her) is a multi-genre artist living in Eugene, Oregon. She is the author of four chapbooks and one full length collection. You can find those books at Bottlecap Press, Finishing Line Press, Cathexis Northwest Press and various places where books are sold. Her latest poems and visual art can be found in Beyond Words Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, Cathexis, Querencia and Wild Roof Journal. You can find her, her visual art, and links to her work around the web at valyntinagrenier.com.

t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.