Thrush Poetry Journal
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Sara Blazevic 

First tomato

Juliana’s taste when I kissed her
     in the sweet peas

Our first tomato of the season
She wrapped it in an evergreen ribbon

We read books in bed about
duck breeding, zootomy, 
lobotomy, Chagall

I carried stakes and twine, cloth ties
for the pepper trellis

            sun-wet arms
            beet-bloodied cuticles

When I was younger I sheared the hems
off all my clothes
so everyone could see I was fraying

Juliana keeps a bag of scraps
collars and cuffs found or discarded
fragments, thread to twist
her dizzy fingers
round and
we lie in bed, we make secret plans

      to grow
            sweet potatoes
            and spinach, and tomatoes

We make plans
for secret chickens and secret cows
tattoos for our olive topography

Secret rows of American corn

All her bug bite scars and hard thighs
    beautiful and perfect
            butterfly fuzz on her upper lip

eyes shut she is
             a highway resting     inside of me
                 and my heartbeat makes

      the frozen cars quiver. 




Sara Blazevic has roots in Rome, New York, and Croatia. She lives, writes, binds books, and loses things outside of Philadelphia for most of the year. Her poetry and photographs have appeared in the Newport Review. 




Return to November 2012 Edition