I like to look around new people’s bedrooms. Nowhere else to sit
except the mattress. Boutique wall decals commanding bloom
wherever you are planted. Inspirational cursive with insinuated menace—
who buried you here? Why can’t you leave? In my new apartment
I’ve made a false bog for the sundew. A hummus tub half-full
of hard tap water, although I ought to be collecting rain. At least I feed
the leaves with purified light. Liar’s sunshine. Grow-bulbs sold
in special frequencies. The lava lamp stays on, this couple say.
Tilted mirror hung above their headboard. On all fours
before such décor, I have reflected on my life’s embellishments.
Stolen cuttings from the soft pink tips of houseplants. A snipped stem
on a potted fig tree pumps organic latex. Crude promise. Ruined carpet.
Am I always this unsympathetic? During the threesome, the wife
watches while I choke her husband. His face goes infrared
then ultraviolet. Cracks like terracotta. Another pot made to outgrow.
I only want a few radiant moments. Haven’t asked, exactly, to be known.
Rebecca Hawkes is a queer painter-poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. Her first collection Meat Lovers (Auckland University Press) was a finalist in the US Lambda Literary Awards and winner of a Laurel Prize in the UK. She edits NZ poetry journal Sweet Mammalian and co-edited the Pacific climate crisis poetics anthology No Other Place to Stand. Rebecca recently completed an MFA in yearning (and, to a lesser extent, poetry) at the University of Michigan in the USA, where her poems have won awards from Palette, Salt Hill, and the Academy of American Poets, and recent work has found homes in the Threepenny, Georgia and Missouri Reviews. Her illuminated-manuscript-chapbook HIDE is coming soon with Ngā Pukapuka Pekapeka in Aotearoa, and her next book Fool’s Spring is forthcoming from Yes Yes Books and AUP in early 2027. Photo by Ebony Lamb.