Laura Baquerizo
Métamorphose

And yet, the time has come,
            when the chain across my breast
                        must fall.
            For it used to be:
                        you plucked the nettle from my back,
                        staining your own hands crimson,
                   dirtying your palms with fresh soil and seed,
                     toil and comfort.
      And soon you birthed a garden,
         grown as quietly as the vine,
               but as proud as the thorn.
                                 And for many days then I lived,
                     a crown of daisies upon my head,
                              until I became so much of the Earth,
                        that where your feet touched the soil,
                                 you traversed the veins of my beating heart,
                        walking circles 'round my temple,
                  and wading through the pools of my mind.
                     Until now.
            When you no longer till the soils of fate and future,
      fidelity and fortune
and a rose is just a rose.

_ _

Laura Baquerizo is from the San Francisco Bay Area and is a college student majoring in English literature at the University of California, Davis. She enjoys writing poetry, playing the piano, and traveling with friends.

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