Poet's Biography 
    Tori Briar is a mother of two children, one who daily turns the other into a butterfly. She raises fish and chickens but eats neither, writes poetry on such topics as long underwear and borrowed shampoo, and is an active member of  GCW, a writing critique group. The managing editor of a small vegetable garden, Tori is always accepting seed submissions.
    Tori earned her English (writing emphasis) degree from Loyola Marymount University and has been writing ever since. She was awarded the 2007 NV Arts Council Fellowship for Literature, and has over 60 poems published in various journals and anthologies, including Best New Poets 2010, California Quarterly, Mid-America Poetry Review, Ruah, and White Heron. She has self-published a first novel and is in the  process of writing a sequel. 
        ~~Click photos below for more poems~~
    

Ascent
At least one world is contained
in the ruby flesh of today’s garden tomato;

perhaps even a whole universe
lies beneath this smooth skin,

each yellow seed a planet, each drop of juice
a star, blazing red into the night of the knife.

This could be the first time you leave earth
without even an airtight suit to save you from the sky.

You could bite in, you could suckle
this small planet of flame

now orbiting your mouth.
You could cleave it with your teeth

taste it breaking into asteroids
each lick a meteor shower

sluicing behind the tongue
your lips and throat, portals to other worlds

your jaws, creator and destroyer
your mouth, full of moons. 
 


            previously published in Albatross