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