Editorial intern Autumn Graham on today’s poem: In Natalia Prusinska’s “More Than Anything,” the speaker describes love as something greater by using sensual language and the captivating imagery of nature to create conflicting moments of beauty and pain. These paradoxes birth startling revelations.

more than anything

Paunches of bushes hung over the road,
slapping against the wide belt of the Earth.

We drove past rows of trees
heavy with what we thought were persimmons.

Everything was destructive in its fullness,
over-packed trees like plastic shopping bags

splitting open at the bottom. Even my body
dripped on the floor, asking for more of you.

On the second to last day of our honeymoon,
we made love on the roof of the Airbnb,

your body, a dozen insects going after the lavender,
and as I came, I swear, I opened my eyes

to a world in labor, like a woman I once knew
whose heart almost stopped as she was being torn

wide open by the 11-pound lovechild
she wanted more than anything.

Natalia Prusinska is a queer poet. Her poetry is forthcoming or has been published in Ghost City Review, Jet Fuel Review, Hooligan Magazine, and elsewhere. She tweets @NataliaGodyla

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