By Eleonora Luongo
after Gaia
Rest against me, feel the soft fur of my moss-covered trunk.
I was just another lonely girl, but am now the whole forest:
all is one, one is all, and you, too. Come.
Let yourself be lulled into the All. Become a dazzling goddess.
I was created yesterday, and just like that I was born
before anyone or anything else existed.
Come, let me cover your cold flesh
with a terrible velvet beauty, rustling reds and earth-colored love.
Consume and be consumed. Never again feel
that ache of singularity.
I was created yesterday, and just like that I am part of all
that ever was or ever will be.
We are always being born anew.
What more could you possibly desire?
The woods, the loam, the air:
dig in your fingers and softly breathe
out your spores. We are mere threads. Connected.
Let the meek inherit the earth.
At last, we are everything.
Eleonora Luongo holds an MFA from Rutgers University-Newark, where she currently works as Communications Director for the School of Arts & Sciences-Newark. Her poetry has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Black Telephone Magazine, No Tender Fences: An Anthology of Immigrant & First-Generation American Poetry, Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry & Art by Womxn & Non-Binary Folx, Hecate: Decay, Blood & Bourbon, and others. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.