Julie Ellinger Hunt’s poem Carcasswas published here as part of Contributor Series 7: The Confessional Diary of Bone. This poem is included in her second collection of poetry, In New Jersey, expected to be released in February by unbound CONTENT.
A Demonstrative Tempest
By Julie Ellinger Hunt
My skin left me today.
Decided it was stretched too thin,
absurdly expected to clothe two people.
It was sick of being shared.
A lilac breeze triggered one of me to
let go of your face in my head, so I
did, ash embers spread to a neighbor’s
flowerbed. She swept it away before
it smoldered.
Pavement footsteps echoed retreat.
Two people divided yet whole.
Separate, different. Unaware of
the fight to survive on their own
without the counter part looming,
ready to pounce back aside.
Under an old vacant shed, buried
in rock and debris a faded
cardboard box held both of me.
In aged time … cleverly compostable.
Without skin to bind us together
or fear to keep us aligned, I finally
sensed the beauty of it all. Why two
must exist in one. The mother to the
fighter. The woman to the believer.
The core to the outskirts … but all
human. All noble and compulsory
to survive a demonstrative tempest.
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Fantastic imagery.
Such courage in the doing, and the writing. I love the part about the neighbour’s flowerbed. “She swept it away before it smoldered” is a poem all on its own.