The interview rose

The week of interviews, twenty minutes each
to face a panel for my disappearing job.

I went into a shop called Accessory House
and bought a flamboyant fabric rose

of the most arresting red as arresting as
Liverpool F.C.’s elite Garibaldi red

and pinned it to my black linen jacket.
I sat on a chair in the corridor, waiting

wondering what I would say. I had
prepared nothing, it would have to be

spontaneous, from the heart, like the rose
or the Garibaldi goalkeeper with his gloves

straining for the crossbar of the goal or diving
like a salmon in its death throes.

Protect me, rose, I said, as the bell sounded
and I walked in, stiff-backed and sat.

Good morning, good morning. We like your rose.
Was that a point on the score sheet?

I’m sure I said something foolish. The rose
was causing me to relax. I told it

to keep it together. Remember the worm
that flies in the night. It settled back

on my lapel and nestled against my cheek
In the corridor again I unpinned it

and held it to my nose. A little perfume
from my wrist had climbed inside it.

Elizabeth Smither

Elizabeth Smither has just completed a collection of four novellas, titled ‘Angel Train’ which will be published later this year by Quentin Wilson. ‘The interview rose’ is the title of a new collection of poems for Auckland University Press.