The American Poetry Review

WHAT REGENERATES IN A HOUSEHOLD

The base of a store-bought celery can grow more celerywith enough water. In the plushgrowth comes when no one is watching.It sprouts stalk & lace leaves while we are at your brother’s weddingin a place where palm trees aren’t native but symbolic.Like you, I fumble in our kitchen drawers for the easy metaphor.Liken a regenerating plant to myself. Cutcheese for crackers before dinner. You are hungry,wanting to know how to write about daily life.I tell you writing about sadness is easy. Joy comesin explosions. I learn something new every dayto break the line between repetition. It’s so easyfinding wonder in the baseboards’ dust liningwhen I zoom in. I find a single hair, long and mine.You call them recuerdos, ways to find mein our home when I’m not around.What regenerates in a household is not as miraculous as celery,it doesn’t grow unwatched either. But feels like a miracle anyways.

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