THINGS TOUCHING THE HOUSE

 

Kitchens are complex turn-ons. I peel off my unmentionable
past, domestic shame. Papaya simmering to candy on the stove.

Parlour trick: you flush rose quartz and crystallize,
transform. Gem-cut bust on the plinth of your chest.

I’m the cool tourniquet of the garter
snake coiling around your left thigh.

The comfort in clichés of heart and hearth.
The colour of blown coals, blown fuses.

We met in a shamefully hot game of Twister.
The carpet a marshland that doused us with swamp gas.

 

Rebecca Salazar edited the Fredericton instalment of The City Series (Frog Hollow), and also serves as an editor for The Fiddlehead and Qwerty. Her writing appears in Lemon Hound, CV2, The Malahat Review, Room, and The Partisan, and her first poetry chapbook is forthcoming in 2016 (Anstruther). She was recently shortlisted in poetry competitions by PRISM and Cosmonauts Avenue. Originally from Sudbury, Ontario, Rebecca is currently a Vanier scholar and PhD candidate at UNB.