Also she appeared to be floating, breathing
a kind of game or to make sense of the gravy-
pond plates, the castaway serviettes
dolphin-finned or carpet
coral, barnacles, moats? Ice buckets
or the tints of curtains: my expression
of solidarity and regret, remembering
when I was part of the fabric of the hotels
and them the passing-through ones.
The result of a diversion, a delay
and a cancelation, had made me thinking
some kind of hint? Should I
stay here for a while? If I could I’d follow
every clue like that, I told the cabbie
who’d heard stranger things at four a.m.
or anytime. Deer, he said
will run in front
but antelope look both ways
and forget jumping fences, they go under
do I ever, have nights such as these; ice
being really unnecessary as the fancier
condiments, frills on most things
more than two pairs of shoes
(these days), or the expensive or cheap scent
(how do people tell? I don’t
know) that hitches a ride with me
her serene blankness like I too used to affect
I wonder, what’s pasted on her refrigerator or
whispered through the floors, what is her main
thwarted dream? (I know she has one)
does she water plants, talk to neighbors, what
is in the linen cabinet, does she have
a linen cabinet, I have never, why
would I think of it? Windows that won’t open
their thick spackle seams
hardened honey, and it’s possible
for someone to stay so silent.
Rose Hunter’s latest book of poetry, glass, was published by Five Islands Press (Australia) in 2017, and her next book, Anchorage, will be published by Haverthorn Press (UK, 2020). More information about her can be found at rosehunterwriting.wordpress.com.
