Feeling time in my hands like rose hips;
the hair inside the bright red
fruit. A promise of delicacy beyond
the itch. The absence of a sister
all around me. Sisterless
I walk a new city, hunting
for hips. The tea we made came
from the roses beside that church
and its statues on Jasmine
Avenue: fruit of the saints. I still
have a bag of them somewhere, shrunk
and darkened. My fear curls inside me, pressing
on my bladder like an unborn child. I should
not have come here in winter.
I should not have come here
without you.
Up the stairs of the old house,
the metal has swallowed
the cold. It is summer
where you are. I want to tell you
about the faded confetti houses
stacked on each other, reaching
impossibly for the sky. How
you can see them even in heavy
rain. Today the rain stopped and I looked
for it: concrete giving way
to a rose bush.
What keeps a person going can be
a kind of absence.
All those years I drank
the time we had together. I
drank it well.
The Rose Hips
of São Paulo
the river and
the stone
I’ve known a river. When the rain comes
down, it rises. I haven’t seen the ground in
drought, but it’s the cracked skin
of lips I think of. I like it best
when the river moves slow
and lazy like a honeybee
in smoke. But it will move however
it needs to.
I’ve known a river
and from my cupped hands
the water pours out
like a kind of love.
I’ve also known a stone.
Shaped
by tumult and water,
each fleck and layer
holds all the different ways that light
fell on the river’s
faces. It takes a life-
time of study
and I’ve already started.
I’ve known a stone and in my palm,
weight and strength
are also
a kind of love.
To be both,
to be whatever is needed—
What else is there?
Grace Freedson Ribeiro studies poetry in the synapses between her nerves, in the roots of her neighborhood trees, and at UCLA. A multidisciplinary artist, her work is concerned with ecology: how we relate to each other and the environment. What she hopes most of all is for her art and poetry to give a little breath back to the world. You can find her work on instagram: @grace.freed.ribeiro