‘I’ve been making a list of plants that thrive in traumatized soil’ by Maija Sofia Makela

i. Poppy
round as a mouth in shock
the poppy is what grows
first upon the desecrated and
in charity shop cashmere
moth-riddled, you tell me about
trenches as if these gashes
were your own, the red wine
spilling from teacups, this
florid ugly nationalism
and yet I’m not immune
to the symmetry of painkillers
made from a plant that grew
where the ground was wounded

ii. Rosebay Willowherb
We followed the underground river
from the top of the heath
to the place where it entered
the Thames as just a trickle
and the flowers were pink
spears against the sky
‘bomb weed’ they called it
for being the first life
to seed itself and shoot
towards the sky
from the rubble after the Blitz
a woman told me the petals
make a tincture to remedy shock
and under the loud pink blades
I lay down and wept, knowing you
have no patience for flowers

iii. Buddleia
Lilac froths from over the wasteland
tangled in barbed wire with
a smell like something ripening
the homeopath gave me a remedy
distilled from Buddleia after
I told her about my rape
she did strange things
like writing down dream
anecdotes and tapping my pulses
with a closed-eye, whispering
a body doesn’t have to be
like a derelict house, no
she said, the blossoms
will grow, like laughter
escaping out from the gutters

From issue #12: autumn/winter 2021

About the Author
Maija Sofia Makela is a musician and writer from rural Galway. Her debut album Bath Time was nominated for the Choice Award and she is a recipient of the Irish Arts Council’s Next Generation award. She lives in west Cork.