The split in your smile is
green. Each time I’m
alone in my room the light
is green. The soap I buy
is green. At the doctor
the dot that scans my eye
is green.

II.

The pages of books
are green. When
Borges went blind
he could still see
green. I’m not anyone
like Borges. I just need
a proximity to a similar
grief.

III.

If it is easy, I’d like you to
be green. I kill all my
plants just to go thick
with green. I want you
so green like reckless
knives of grass when
the world begins again,
without us.

IV.

My mother works in a
warehouse striped
green. She folds clothes
all day. She grew up in
in green. A green house,
the one road with fields
that choked me
green when I saw them.

V.

The part in your hair
is green. The bud of your
tongue, the slice of your eye
is green. The smell of you
is green. When you start
your car when you move
away when that ends it
ends green.

VI.

My heart is a small
convulsing animal.
I am not sure
what the wildness
of living obligates,
green or otherwise.

I’m just ending
in it, I’m ending
in green.

Contributor Notes

Vanessa Diaz is from Huntington Park, California. Her work has been published in Huizache Magazine and The Acentos Review. She has received fellowships from the VONA/Voices workshops and the Anaphora Writing Residency.