It Grows

Your love enters me

like light into leaf,

and I give it back as breath.

It thickens my veins

with green hope,

turns hunger into sugar

stored deep.

Years later and still, moisture rises unseen,

your gift turning my heat

into rain.

I lean toward you,

my body remade in colour,

until even my shade shelters other.

At dusk you linger,

a glow held under.

In storm you steady,

my stem refusing to sunder.

Sometimes, I return your love

as blossom,

fruit in hand,

seed for tomorrow’s ground.

And even when harvest is over,

I begin again—

season after season,

your love remade

like new rings forming.

First place in the 2025 River Amulet Poetry Prize by River Paw Press.

This poem was dedicated to my better half, Kristoffer Petterson.