Grace Hu
After a warm dry winter
a light grey rain offers little relief
Spring, too summer-like, sets in all at once
intolerantissima umorique ac frigori adsueta
aestu et angore vexata moriar. *
I want snow to bury me.
In the oily marrow of my bones,
an ancestral need for cold.
Already, the sweet reek of white hedge flowers decaying underfoot
makes the warm air too fragrant and heady.
Animals cry la petite mort day after day
Writhing worms break up the soil so fast
it seems to breathe.
In and out.
New beginnings.
The nights are restless and nostalgia is violent
Your thoughts track oversaturated across the bedroom
back and forth like a train.
You pace the balcony instead.
The gentle light makes gods of us all
It dries and firms the new sticky green
Unfurls bush-worths of blue hydrangeas
Everything drips vitality but
I pray for winter rain.
September is the cruellest month,
she murmurs hushed promises
and caresses as she violates.
* Accustomed to the wet cold,
The suffocating heat irritates me until I’m dying
