Pamplemousse

The Student Literary Journal of Vermont State University

Marin Headlands

Poetry

 
 
The ancient Chinese planted prisoners above
bamboo shoots, and watched them grow into
their victims—

I worked poppy seeds into my hair with hotel
soap, seeded redwoods in my veins with the edges
of loofahs

and hoped the stems would grow inward. Maybe
they’d wrap around my brain, grow forests beneath
my skin,

but instead they sprouted below my pillow. The
sheet exacerbated by the fog. The mattress
dipped behind

my body and the boxspring, sun salted by the
window, dissolved between my hands. How odd
it is to crave

that sort of torture.
  

JORDAN BARKER is a 2018 graduate of the University of Mary Washington where she majored in English and sociology. At UMW she hosted a radio show which she believes was instrumental in the development of her poetic voice. Her poems focus on specific locations and how each of these places produce a powerful and, often times, tangible response. In the spring of 2018, she presented her chapbook, When You Surface from the Swim, at UMW’s 14th annual Kemp Symposium. She can frequently be found at local coffee shops drinking a borderline unhealthy amount of caffeine and reading anything and everything by Kurt Vonnegut. She currently resides in Williamsburg, Virginia