Melissa Eleftherion | that time a tree grew out of my mouth and i had armor

Melissa Eleftherion grew up in Brooklyn. She is the author of huminsect (dancing girl press, 2013), prism maps (dusie kollektiv, 2014), Pigtail Duty (dancing girl press, 2015), the leaves the leaves (poems-for-all, 2017), green glass asterisms (poems-for-all, 2017), and several other chapbooks. Her first full-length collection, field guide to autobiography, is forthcoming from H_NGM_N Books in summer/fall 2017. Recent work is forthcoming in inter|rupture, Italian-Americana Review, & Poet-Librarians in the Library of Babel. Founder of the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange, Melissa lives in Mendocino County where she works as a Teen Librarian, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series at the Ukiah Library.

Also by Melissa Eleftherion: huminsect prism maps Pigtail Duty

April 2017

Melissa Eleftherion

that time a tree grew out of my mouth and i had armor

auriculars hinge mandible what is the mouth of a tree ocean breast a pallial line thorax my cambium i am armor in the woods piths capito-pedal cartilage Alula little hinge elytra my growth rings my tentacles The orbital in umbo coxa Undertail coverts ligament The heart is a phloem a muscle scar a gut of ganglia Radula along leaf margins I graze the little points with my teeth i draw a line

This poem appears in the final section of my first full-length collection, field guide to autobiography, due out from H_NGM_N Books in late summer. Where each poem in the book takes a specific type of tree, mineral, bird, insect (et al.) as its focus, "that time a tree grew out of my mouth and i had armor" witnesses the fragments coalescing & the borders we're trained to see begin to fade.

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