What Rough Beast
- What Rough Beast
I am not the rose, but I have lived with her.
—B. H. Comfort
Not the pepper, though I’ve bled and burned. Not the sun flower, though aspired and waved.
Not the carrot, though I’ve reached deep and longed. Not the onion,
though I’ve wept and shed. This season that feeds me …
That you might trip eternally amidst wasps barefoot and un
scathed, plucking apricots for your basket. Such sweetness, such soft skin. [End Page 210]
Katrina Roberts has published four books of poems: Underdog, Friendly Fire, The Quick, and How Late Desire Looks. She teaches at Whitman College, where she directs the Visiting Writers Reading Series. With her husband, Jeremy Barker, she founded and runs Tytonidae Cellars and the Walla Walla Distilling Company in southeast Washington State, where they live on a small farm with their three young children.
