It’s the smallest things
capillaries carrying, noiseless
root hairs drawing water through
a cut stem in a glass jar rupture.
He never hit, but his weather
moved, shift in light
a closing of petals, filling arteries
with pressure they weren’t grown to bear.
I learned to read
him as leaves do with air:
minute changes, living
turning toward or away from harm.
I’d feel them rise
veins flushing toward the surface
heat rising, capillaries swelling
splitting, spilling
until the skin of things could no longer hold.
No one misses a face that red
so I leave before the blush betrays me
or I don’t go at all.
They speak of grafting as delicate:
one body cut to take another in
held until it cannot tell which growth is its own.
I took his shape, my growth
redirected
for symmetry.
There are violences that leave
no break in the bark:
only
slow bruising
under surface,
phloem
darkening
sugar turned bitter before it can reach the flower.
Alexia Cousineau (she/her) is a queer franco-Ontarian spoken word artist and poet from Timmins, Ontario. Alexia is the chair and founder of Anaphore Sudbury. Her written work is featured in The Literary Review of Canada, Sulphur Literary Journal, as well as many local zines in Sudbury.