If I Could,I Would Have
Named Myself Honeysuckle
by Robin Gow
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after the bush a block away,
and how Mom and I pinched the necks of the white flowers precise thumb finger sweet water full mouths. I was hungry for a name like that, like something to suck down quickly, like yellow word, like bugs humming, like a tick ambling behind my ear and planting its obsidian head, a jewel dunked in blood. Back at home, we pulled the tick out with tweezers and I told Mom I was afraid of the honeysuckle bush. She said next time we’ll check for ticks before leaving. Lying awake, in bed, I thought of that plant mess live green entangled in the waists of trees by the side of the road choruses of stems dripping damp tongues and I decided that if people called me honeysuckle instead of Sarah I would have a kind of inherent wildness, an absence of fear a sopping fire, I'd be sugar teeth, a grit girl, a head to be plucked from scarlet creek. |
Photo by Wyxina Tresse on Unsplash
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Robin Gow's poetry has recently been published in POETRY, The Gateway Review, and Tilde. He is a graduate student at Adelphi University pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. He is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets, Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages and interns for Porkbelly Press. He is and out and proud bisexual transgender man passionate about LGBT issues. He loves poetry that lilts in and out of reality and his queerness is also the central axis of his work.
