ADULT GROCERIES 

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Aiyana Masla is the author of the chapbook Stone Fruit (Bottlecap Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in magazines such as West Trestle Review, Vagabond City Poetry, Rogue Agent Journal, Illuminations, Impossible Task, and in other collections both in print and online. Currently based in New York City, she is a queer interdisciplinary artist and anti-bias educator, born in August. For more of her work: www.AiyanaMasla.com ︎

*Green was simultaneously published in Roi Fainéant Press last month.

01.    Green




green began the foggiest dawn,                              long lashes
new sun                                                                       or just legs
on dew                                                                         two legs
where honey was every                                             blink, rub together,
morning for a thank you,                                            just my two legs, hairy, furred
after a loose dress. For the                                        I grow hair, still,
edge &                                                                          I am needled — left hand’s vein,
thinking no!                                                                  resilience, about an hour
no day is waisted                                                        our just a little
blood                                                                            kicking tender
hands in the morning                                                 blanketed, as time swelled, as evening
bruised, tea from roots & slowly                                loosened, wings spluttering, lied
I’ve come to show you                                                healing at the time of a buzz of peepers
my dug up                                                                    time taking it’s august
entropy, always                                                            then night. If there is joy
days that touched,                                                       swept by
an exposed, ferny unfurl,                                             a clean grief — it was those leaf wings,
that small honey,                                                          & never was my fault. A week now I
sat here in                                                                     the softest moss, wrapped
so grass                                                                         round my own face & sat
in front,                                                                           in the same
mouth                                                                             prayer tree
putting on dew                                                              sun, dark
cricket green                                                                  a ceremony then like on the page
spruce I remember                                                        about joy as
so still                                                                              in it. Even
gentleness                                                                      gentleness
I remember the groundbloom of trout lilies                returning over life.




︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎





02.    Returned




hemlock sap
honeydew
moonriver
this wetted
green, again.
Hey,
I can learn

imperfect holiness.
I can learn this

dappled afternoon,
& we, well enough
to stand
long legged

at the familiar
wooded entrance,

I have never been
so thankful.