Julie Rouse’s poems have appeared in journals including Denver Quarterly, pallaksch.pallaksch, Arsenic Lobster, and decomP. She lives and works in Des Moines, IA with her husband, fellow poet B.J. Soloy, the Original Boy. She will make him believe her dreams are real.
ROSE OF SHARON
At night when you say paranoia, I say disaster. You say buy me another. I say take me home. We still speak of the sun rising. You say the bartender, with her pretty bobbed hair, just called you dear. Dear, my face in the bathroom mirror is not my face. With not my chic haircut. In not just this beautiful girl do I see all potential threats. The star dust the stars want violently back. Dark energy a code word for our ignorance. Without your helmet, smoking a cigarette, your head laid open, the weeping hole in your throat, you make everything seem possible. All of that roadkill. And when I finally get the wickedness beaten out, and my breast is brash and leaking, I’m suckling my very own everyman. This last scene is so beautiful, what do you say? It makes me want to die.