Until the body becomes a flower, knowing its curvature in space.
An acceleration of speed, a pushing away — the back of a head, an exposed root, a lie.
Once I wrote, I’m running with my arms.
Grappling with the position of my limbs in relation to my body.
Sometimes one can be too close and not close enough.
Or be stuck in thinness, or be very thirsty.
I need to know more about gravity — how to fall towards the center of the earth.
How one becomes afterward and how it startles.
Barbara Berg has had poems published in In Posse Review, Lunch Ticket, Poemeleon, and Lady/Liberty/Lit. She’s attended the Tupelo Truchas Poetry Conference and the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing in Poetry at Antioch University Los Angeles. She is a member of Women Who Submit and currently lives on indigenous Tongva land in Los Angeles.