It’s late summer and I read an article
about a woman’s disdain for August
and agreed, until today, when I soaked
my desirous bones in the melt-hot-sun
with a playlist full of ice-cream-van
tones, and made crowns from metallic
card and sellotape, not for monarchs,
for Gods and Goddesses.
I sat wide-legged on shop floors
and scissored between gravestones
and never felt so alive,
the sweatshirt on a woman walking
down Church Street said, the magic is in you
and you, yours said, jasmine, our love
will be sweet and it was speaking
your language, as you grow through
dog-day dry soil, out-of-nowhere-miracle
star-climbing, white-blooming
sugar-scent-rising
and I know for sure
that I am a gardener, tender-fingered
and needing you to flourish
Catherine Norris is a poet and experimental spoken word artist living in Malvern, Worcestershire. Her poetry has been published on the Lucy Writers' Platform, Inter-View magazine and Four Way Review, as well as commended by Andrew McMillan in the Magma Poetry Competition. She has also recorded spoken word for Err Records, France and Miracle Pond Records, UK under the name Plastic Moonrise with a new release due in September with Spirit Duplicator, UK. She is currently a practice-based poetry PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, England, exploring women in domestic space.
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