Live as the Tomatillo Reaches for Life on a Hot July Day

 

A three-month-old tomatillo, branches thickening,

bursting forth like firm poles

filled with fruit and flower—

how it rises underneath the lemon tree,

set on pulling itself toward the canopy

straight to sun—it sends out fragrance

meant to fill its flowers with bees and butterflies,

bends itself until it’s squat set

to take all summer can give, pull heat, light

into its body—an electric stirring towards life.

—From Points in the Network, an unpublished poetry manuscript by Gabrielle Myers. Find the author’s published works, Hive-Mind and Too Many Seeds, at gabriellemyers.com

The image of three desiccated tomatillo fruits (Physalis ixocarpa) by photographer Roger Culos is part of a natural history collection at the Muséum de Toulouse. Acquired from Wikimedia Commons, a free media repository, its usage here is allowed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. You can find the photo posted at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Physalis_ixocarpa_MHNT.BOT.2008.1.52.jpg.