Becoming Philodendron
It began with a hankering for banisters,
to coil my limbs around the struts,
to trust in the comfort of the cling.
I’d linger in the kitchen for hours,
boil my twenty kettles with tropical resolve,
slick my skin with steam.
As my thumbs stuttered into bud,
started their quiet unfurling,
a riot of roots surged from my heels and knees.
Now I dream in green,
learn to speak in semaphore of petiole and axil.
I spurn all uprights that don’t invite
a twine – the scented candle, cacti,
books with their insistent spines.
I relinquish seconds and minutes,
eating spinach, my instinct to shut the blinds.
Lungs become redundant.
Fungus gnats stir no urge
to swipe. Looping thoughts lose
their grip on their supports. Cordate leaves beat
to the rhythm of light.
Mushrooms grow around my memory of toes
and feed my rhizomic goal
to keep
reaching –
Susan Richardson is a writer, performer and educator from Wales. Her fourth poetry collection, Words the Turtle Taught Me, emerged from her residency with the Marine Conservation Society and was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award. Read more.