Poem
Pascale Petit
Roots
Roots
Roots
I’ve come to lie on the basalt plainwhere the earth is trying to heal itself,
to peer down a rift in the mantle
when the pain gets white, keep looking
until my chest blisters – right down
where a roiling valve beats like a heart
and my own heart bubbles.
The threads of my dress
spit and snarl. I soothe them.
I calm sun flares, plasma storms.
And on the cloth of fire I draw vines.
They shoot out from my hollows –
leaves large as hands
that stroke the wound of my land.
© 2010, Pascale Petit
From: What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo
Publisher: Seren, Bridgend
From: What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo
Publisher: Seren, Bridgend
Pascale Petit
(France, )
Pascale Petit was born in Paris, grew up in France and Wales and lives in Cornwall. She is of French/Welsh/Indian heritage. Her eighth collection, Tiger Girl, from Bloodaxe in 2020, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and a poem from the book won the Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize. Her poems have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, The Poetry Archive and Australia’s ABC Radi...
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Roots
I’ve come to lie on the basalt plainwhere the earth is trying to heal itself,
to peer down a rift in the mantle
when the pain gets white, keep looking
until my chest blisters – right down
where a roiling valve beats like a heart
and my own heart bubbles.
The threads of my dress
spit and snarl. I soothe them.
I calm sun flares, plasma storms.
And on the cloth of fire I draw vines.
They shoot out from my hollows –
leaves large as hands
that stroke the wound of my land.
From: What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo
Roots
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