Jennifer Martelli: Succulent

I want to fill a bay window with fifteen jade plants
in terra cotta pots until they grow thick and knotted as snakes

tangling in the hair of a woman raped by a god
and punished by a woman.

I want to tease rubbery pearl beads of asterids into a rosary string,
finger them, pray on them, try not to let the toxin seep onto my skin.

I want to snap off a fat oozy leaf of the aloe I’d keep
in the middle of my blue table: rub the oil on my burnt hands—

I want to grow the round black and shiny phytolacca on a high
shelf, away from Maria, my long-hair cat, hide them

from pregnant women who want to keep their babies
from bleeding out. I always seem to want too much.

Would my succulents survive me? They can live
for a long time without water, without even touch.