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Poem of the Week: flower by aracelis girmay

Describe one formal realization or change you made during the writing of this poem.

I felt increasingly marked by the flower’s ephemerality and by the ways that turning toward it in the poem touched open channels between other life forces and memories. Formally, I was interested in the capillary action of the flower pulling water up through its roots, along with the descent of the rain and of this poem read from top to bottom.