lazing Star explores the healing modalities of plants and the liberatory possibilities of radical tenderness through a queer ecopoetics of care with and for the more-than-human world. The poems reimagine interspecies communication and nonhuman encounters through transcorporeal embodiments in thick time. Care blossoms into speculative permutations of the body and self through an exploration of trauma, healing, and the more-than-human relationships we are always already engaging in, visioning new possibilities for belonging, love and family.

Pussytoes

Antennaria neglecta

A webbing of string wrapped round fingers

passed hand to hand body to body each

thread whiskers to conclusion

tidy arrivals

awaiting the next

when you see

but can’t say it yet read

the signs early under hayed grass

I’m not sure what’s coming but can feel

promise in bone as pussytoes’ baby q-tips

stem out fuzzy plant paws

remember

my own soft touch and get out the way

years of compost layers of

dainty dresses and ghosts of former selves

ready-made for good use laying

new frame in less-traveled fields

Ironweed

Vernonia baldwinii

You did it over and over again

walking tight circles into patterns

deep grooves into dirt

a cycle on repeat

until it broke creekside

polished stones

lapping up their own

in each repetition

a chance to break free

a permutation

that mothers a single body

spills

humble into tallgrass field

let it go

permission bare skin to imbibe afternoon sun

breathe into atrophied muscles and tired

limbs

select the seeds and give

us all a chance to see what flowers

Ocotillo

Fouquieria splendens

What’s said can

singe and burn itself out

ash nourishing

soil for future growth

anchored in shifting

weather

I make way into streets

into patches of green

find portals

in repeated refrains:

dawn enters

after night spring after winter

every May peonies bloom sloppy pink

with each remnant given away:

space for something new

what’s made

can be unmade what cannot hold

was perhaps not meant to

from creation to survival and back again:

flood song moon song singing liquid clear

Megan Kaminski is a poet and Professor of Creative Writing and Environmental Studies at the University of Kansas. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Gentlewomen (Noemi Press, 2020), and two artist’s books – Prairie Divination (Sunseen Books, 2022), a book of illustrated essays and oracle deck; and Quietly Between (A Viewing Project, 2022), a co-authored collection of poetry and photography. Her place-based sound, poetry and art installations have appeared at museums, public gardens and libraries across the country, and her poetry and essays  regularly appear in literary magazines and journals. 

https://www.megankaminski.com/

Email: kaminski@ku.edu