Canese Jarboe

Erica Jong Said, “If a Woman Wants to be a Poet,
She Must Dwell in the House of the Tomato,”
by Canese Jarboe

1

& a tomato is a tomato is a tomato is my pussy
            —I forget they are fruit.

            2

            Wolf peach. The scientific
name for tomato means wolf
            peach, lycopersicum, after a rumor
that witches used deadly
nightshade to turn themselves into
werewolves (when what a witch
                                  really does is:

                                                apply flying ointment
                                                & masturbate with her broomstick).

3

I canned hot salsa until I entombed myself in row upon row

                                                                                    of superheated glass.

4

o flavr savr       o ripening        o goodbye

            5

            This is the fuzz of me, the soft, dark
                                    worm of me. I am mining this
                                    fruit & tunneling
                                    this Tunnel of My Exact Dimensions,
                                    until
                                                            silver moth
                                                            silver moth
                                                            silver moth

                                    & not long for this.

Canese Jarboe is the author of the chapbook dark acre (Willow Springs Books, 2018). Their poems appear recently or soon in TYPO, Indiana Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and elsewhere. Canese is the recipient of an editorial internship with River Styx, a scholarship from The Frost Place, and currently serves as a reader for Boulevard. Originally from rural southeastern Kansas, Canese currently lives and teaches in coastal Louisiana.

Erica Jong Said, “If a Woman Wants to be a Poet,She Must Dwell in the House of the Tomato,”​by Canese Jarboe

Erica Jong Said, “If a Woman Wants to be a Poet,
She Must Dwell in the House of the Tomato,”
by Canese Jarboe