Spring surprises us. We insulate
the shipping container, pane
and frame the field: blue hills, gold
alders. Paint our walls “umbrella.”
Bunk a bed. I move in. I love
our candlelit shower crowded
by tomato vines sighing in steam.
We scrub March sludge, soak up
marsh chorus in our shared porcelain
tub under cloud-clad sky. We dive in
to the rain-clad quarry with naked acrobats.
I notice my body does not match.
I run dust-road shoulders. I throw up
while the contortionist walks by nude.
One night, we pen desires on paper lanterns.
My hungers float away, light to Cassiopeia.
Ellie Rogers recently graduated from the MFA in Creative Writing program at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. Her poems have appeared in Camas, Crab Creek Review, Floating Bridge Review, Midwestern Gothic, and Redivider. She served as the assistant managing editor of Bellingham Review, as a board member of the Whatcom Poetry Series, and as chair of the Boynton Poetry Contest Committee.
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