by: Theo Richards
In these lush love poems, Theo Richards sings of “…the earth swollen and bursting,” of the abundance of the heart and of the world, of love so overripe that one can’t help but share its goodness with everyone.
call it God or Sin or Magic or something else entirely
My dreamy southern boy georgia peach stained glass window magnolia about-to-bloom They
call you pussy willow pot of clover honey bottle me a sienna summer Bottle me a florida fat and
wet i bite into you and daffodil slick pours out I’ve met you bleeding confederate jasmine i know
you when you shake In a dusty alabama restaurant i watch you eat fried green tomatoes Sweet
tea and stolen rosemary It was me who lit the pines on fire
Little Dawn
“Sometimes I wake up and you’re there and I just feel so fucking happy that you are alive and
that I get to experience you. Sometimes I wake up and it is not a dream in a good way.”
Stained glass window…Little orange tree…Peonies worth camping under:
In a dream we both say “I’m nervous”…..and laugh.
I awake hazy with an exact knowledge of……the ripeness of tomatoes on a peninsula and
we are on a beach……and they are growing
heirlooms bursting forth purple
cracked seams
but now………I know only the wet slick of you
On Monday I eat an orange in class slow…………..a child with sticky fingers………Later
you will rub the peal of a grapefruit on to my throat…………..On pulse points
for weeks when I blush I can smell it
Do you remember being up to our knees in snow?……………In bath water? In mangos rinds?
it’s the half eaten pomegranate sitting alone in the door of your fridge…………….and how your
fingers must have pulled the seeds…………………….from inside of their soft golden encasement.
I am sitting at your feet or……..on a porch in Georgia………..or in a house made of mirrors
where there is God inside
It is always summer here……………warm and wet and wild………….dragon flies fat with sunlight
the earth swollen and bursting at lichened seams
2017, Siena, Winter
in the shower i want to be the boxers you’ve left on
blue cotton against your wet
thick air sun screen salt.
dirty talk, Jacksonville mud:
dry caked on, splits down your chest. you, young
chlorine blonde thieving key limes from the neighbor’s tree.
halved, fingering the quarters
Here, again, me becoming the milk from figs
Theo Richards is a queer latinx poet and teacher living in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. Their work has recently appeared in Animal Literary Magazine, Gallery 1381, and on their partner’s wall. You can find Theo on Twitter @TheoandtheFawn.
