/sera gamble

Morning

your body wakes me
at 6 am

it is down there in the earth
under the chalk-blue olive tree

yawn–stir coffee–think of worms
in earth rich with food

I go for a walk
to say good morning

hello your fingers
dissolving to calcium

new weeds that exhale you
pollen into air

that fucking prayer for rest
didn’t work for either of us

instead I pull up flowers by the root
and eat them whole

suck the dirt
smiling under my fingernail


Sera Gamble‘s writing has appeared in The Washington Square Review, Tinderbox, Sky Island Journal, Nine Mile Magazine, and in various anthologies. She also writes film and television. Sera is a first-generation American living in Los Angeles with her husband and dog, who also enjoy poetry.