by Laura Rodley
This poem is going to cool you off
no jumping into a bathtub
full of ice cubes, no witch hazel
drenched in sheets
across your chest, no rapid
heartbeat of starlings, your heart
beating, siphoning air,
it is this poem rubbing
the dripping condensation
of its long green bottle
against your forehead,
gurgling down your throat
when thirsty; you tip the poem
up to drink. It is this poem,
its ice cubes set between
your breasts, its shorts
that you are wearing, pink madras
cotton with only one slim zipper
the halter top that matches;
feel the soft cotton against
your skin, run the cool green
bottle of the poem
against your arms,
drink it, drink slowly,
make it last.
Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose
was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New
England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press. Co-curator
of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as
contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.