First Date at a Greenhouse | Costantino Toth
‘The way that we handle [geolocation] uncertainty
is by taking a star sighting during missile fight,
to then effectively correct for the initial position error.’
—pp. 206–7 from “Nuclear War: A Scenario”
Romance is nature under our mouths
and our hands— flowers
to gardens, sea foam
to vineyards, smatter
of stars to a city plan,
hills to hips.
If nature, however,
begets only nature, such
that our tending and lining
and sucking are natural, as are
the noisy babies and tools,
then so are
the four hundred and fifty–five
kilotons wearing exhaust
like a wedding band,
poking out of the sea—
love’s ground zero
—and tracing a nail along
the Great Bear’s grooves
‘til it snags
a tuft of Beijing, woos in the new world
with Titan
Arum
ikebana.
About the Author:
Costantino Toth is a researcher, warehouse worker, and writer. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Epiphany, The Rumpus, and Two Thirds North. She is currently pursuing her M.A. in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, while residing in Florida with Romoletto, her little cat. Her writing and research trace the tanglings of art, ancient history, and divination.