My Season

A winter walk puts me on a path with peers and their
              dogs, kids, or other reasons to be there

I breathe purposefully like a mountain or a train

Last night I dreamt about my love who always a dream, he bought a house at                      twenty-four and I’m in it again, after a family party, after we’d broken up
              his mother is sorting out junk
              somebodies’ kids ask if I want to play but I’m already hiding from him

As I leave he turns me by the shoulder, weeping 

              He is a water balloon and I hold him like a child who won’t throw
              He is a red coat and I am his horse charging        

              My impossibility is as inevitable as spring
              My body as helpless as a magnolia tree in bloom
              Elegant pink, magenta, and fierce white organs facing the sky  
              and slowly unpeeling
              My fist clenched so tight every cleft and knuckle blushes

The future is in it. My love is in it

I wish to open, for everyone who passes
             to open, and shed our isolation
             like waxy, lemon-scented petals
             like dead skin from angel heels

Simone Kaho

Simone Kaho is a Tōngan / Pākehā writer and multimedia journalist who creates work at the intersection of politics, art, and storytelling. She has a Master’s in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters and has published two books of discontinuous narrative poetry, Lucky Punch in 2016, and HEAL! in 2022.