Bright Along the Body | Ashley Roach-Freiman

Ashley Roach-Freiman is a librarian and poet with work appearing or forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, THRUSH Poetry Journal, The Literary Review, Ghost Proposal, and Superstition Review. More about her can be found at ashleyroachfreiman.com.   Blessing for the Use of New HousesWhere will we rootwhen we die? Rootthe trembling of the heart, faintingand swooning, and idle the wormsin the belly? Bold into the gold sunflower,clockface. Bold into the drip paintriver mist Jurassic. Bold into the heart stopheart won’t heart must.Green all winter. Green all summer. Giddiness and goatfoot, turn the brain and belly.Cream plate of magnolia, heart and hunger,and dance. Hallways and heart,woodfloors and heart,bright quilt mussed hotand heart, and cat hair and heart.Spiderflower, clockflower:home fortune and cat tongue,strong earth all surround.Virtues of leaf, green painted gold.Gemini owns the flower double-pawed—there is no bitter herb to rob melancholyfrom the heart and paint it.Our root sends fo