Rose Hunter's book of poetry, [four paths], was published by Texture Press (2012), and her book, to the river (also poetry), was published by Artistically Declined Press (2010). Links to more of her writing can be found at "Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home" (roseh400.wordpress.com). She has appeared in journals such as DIAGRAM, anderbo, Juked, Bluestem, PANK, Cordite, Blip, The Nervous Breakdown, and Connotation Press. She is from Australia originally, lived in Canada for ten years, and now lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She tweets, @roseh400.
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Primavera
or I wouldn’t feel like I wanted to be knocked
off my feet at a birthday party by some kind of tidal
let’s call it, wave. Do I want another? Yes. But
first scrunch me into a ball and put me into a clam
or I mean scallop some soft body missing a house.
Grasp me like you grasp a slippery thing
granting consent for last minute squirming
and riffles. Ready the bucket, lined with silk
Valentine red, and robes but we never
got along in February and then there was
July, August and September forget
January too. By New Year’s Day
it was usually sour whether non alcoholic
bubbly or real champagne. Reach out to me like you do
the lobster claws and leaves of the bodhi tree.
I have often been jealous of this passing regard
brush against me like hay, the no hay type
the type we don’t have here
brush against me so I do not know
whether you are a forearm or a mouth
or something you forgot in your car
something they did not steal
because they did not look in the ashtray and I said
no one would look in the ashtray and you said
everyone would but they did not. You
are back in me like shin splints already.
or I wouldn’t feel like I wanted to be knocked
off my feet at a birthday party by some kind of tidal
let’s call it, wave. Do I want another? Yes. But
first scrunch me into a ball and put me into a clam
or I mean scallop some soft body missing a house.
Grasp me like you grasp a slippery thing
granting consent for last minute squirming
and riffles. Ready the bucket, lined with silk
Valentine red, and robes but we never
got along in February and then there was
July, August and September forget
January too. By New Year’s Day
it was usually sour whether non alcoholic
bubbly or real champagne. Reach out to me like you do
the lobster claws and leaves of the bodhi tree.
I have often been jealous of this passing regard
brush against me like hay, the no hay type
the type we don’t have here
brush against me so I do not know
whether you are a forearm or a mouth
or something you forgot in your car
something they did not steal
because they did not look in the ashtray and I said
no one would look in the ashtray and you said
everyone would but they did not. You
are back in me like shin splints already.