Eric Fischman
Make me a desert I miss my scales
Flicking tongue, winged body, orange sun
Make me a dust and gravel cherub my
roots in the salt taste how bitter the pillar
of smoke, we burn so the Earth can stretch
its belly more room for flowers make
my body bloom. This mountain was a coral
bed this river was a sky these toes
were webbed, I drag myself up the pink
stones my family a fortress arrows raining
This tree was an umbrella, this car door was
a shield I dig into the dirt that once
was a quarry, was a temple, was a tomb
This poem is part of a collection of pieces that will be published on the blog through April and May 2025 leading to the release of Bombay Gin Literary Journal Issue #49, in the strangler fig.
