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The Rose Garden

BY A. E. LONG

 

LaSwap Sixth Form, ’16
2016 Adroit Prize for Poetry: Editors’ List

inside the sun: a white-hot
bathroom. a girl’s

melting soaking soap-hands peeling
away a dress. she is looking,

with bruise-yellow eyes, at a red heart
steaming on the shower glass, at

its cold milky case. it slinks off,
after a few days.

*

this is not an afterlife—it is
The Rose Garden. please do not dip

your fingers in the lake. she looks
with bruise-yellow eyes at the creamy pink

water gleaming. pomegranates
drip poison molasses:

saliva. flowerbeds, rhododendrons, ladybugs
blinking. wine-coloured ants chewing

strawberry roadkill, a soft
handful of brain.

she picks at her razor-burns. blue sky
varnishes, and as the twin suns set

it glows a dusky puce.
she eats the empty wet oranges,

wondering if those little waxy nuggets
are peppermints or his teeth.

 

A. E. Long lives in London, studying English Literature, Philosophy and Maths. She received first-place in Creative Writing at the 2014 Korolyov Space Olympics, and was commended in the 2015 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Sometimes she puts bits of writing on ae-long.tumblr.com.