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Week 31: Coconut 
by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach 

Four times they drew, 
checking blood 
for sweetness—how quickly 
the body can dissolve 
what feeds it. “Glucose” 
meaning sweet wine, 
simple, meaning 
how much of it hides
inside the coconut's 
husk, its tender white-
meat flesh, its milk,
the creamy-clear 
colostrum, the same 
as your seed-nut-fruit 
dark-drupe nipples seep 
each time you shower 
or mistake a noise 
for children’s crying. 
You vomited the first time,
five-years-old and biting 
its shredded meat, dried flakes   
surrounded by dark chocolate.
You feel it even now, sand 
between your teeth, sickness 
rising, remembering
BOUNTY, the candy-bar
treat so you’d endure another 
hour in the market, Ukraine’s
summer heat, your bountiless  
childhood, everything
for sale to make departure
sweeter. You’ve refused it
since, the stick and sweet
of it. You’ve let go 
anything you own, 
your blood and choice
to eat a bountiful pint 
of imported German 
ice cream, impossible 
in your insoluble childhood. 

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She is the author of three poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother; Don't Touch the Bones; and 40 WEEKS, forthcoming from YesYes Books in February, 2023. Her recent poems appear in POETRY, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Julia is the author of the model poem for "Dear Ukraine": A Global Community Poem (https://dearukrainepoem.com/). She is Assistant Professor and Murphy Fellow in Creative Writing at Hendrix College and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her family.

ISSN 2157-8079
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