I like something from nothing. I like looking at all the pretty bottles.
I like looking at the pretty bottles and then food arrives at the restaurant.
We even eat the garnish. We even try to peel the plastic fruit in the plastic bowl.
Waste not want not, waste not your wanting. We want more of everything.
There are aisles and aisles of winter. It’s a happy thing to be a garnish.
I like something from nothing when the nothing tastes so fruity with bubbles.
A meal from nothing is a healthy meal. We praise the healthy as if it were nothing.
Looking at the pretty bottles we fold our hands in happy grace. Aspire to trim.
When we open the fridge and hear clinking in the door the fridge is fully fulfilled.
Everywhere weather exists, we exist to endure weather. I like being sturdy for no reason.

The fig trees are buried in sacks in the yard, winter is humbled by their burlap.
They stiffen as if to say, It’s nothing.

—

Domenica Martinello, a poet from Montréal, was a finalist for the 2017 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the winner of the carte blanche 3Macs prize. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and her debut collection, All Day I Dream About Sirens, is forthcoming with Coach House Books in Spring 2019.