Two Poems
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Aubade: “Auburn”
The word might be her dreaming sound,my whisper matching the suspenseof gentle snoring. Am I denseto wonder at the color foundwhere brown and red and first sunlightcombine, aflame but not awake?She sleeps, untroubled for my sake,tenaciously, in morning white.I want to see her waking eyesbut will not risk their wakened glare.She likes me, yes—she swears it’s true—but she adores her sleep. To vieweach rising by her auburn hair:I settle for this quiet prize. [End Page 272]
Exile
The Wandering Albatross can go for monthsin circumpolar flight. It dives for foodand sleeps aloft—then finds its mate through crudeand clumsy dance (they pair, for life, just once).
And Mars is likely seeded now with germsthat will survive. These space-junk stowawaysmay find conditions right in future daysto start it all again on Martian terms.
But what of you and me? We’re worlds apartby now. I stumble through another falland wonder how you are. Do you recallthe way our secret handshake went, by heart?
My love, I’m practicing the steps you set me.I’d know you anywhere. Please don’t forget me. [End Page 273]
Simon Hunt was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and raised in England and the United States. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Homestead Review, Light Quarterly, Measure, the Raintown Review, the Seventh Quarry, and other journals—as well as in the online publications 14 × 14 and the Chimaera. He teaches in Monterey, California, where he lives with his wife and two children. He is a member of the Board of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, where he has served as a volunteer docent for more than a decade.
