Paula Harris

today an editor told me that what I write isn’t poetry and so maybe I don’t know how to write a poem but I was thinking about you and wanted to write something; so here is your something

you are the bath filled with green marbles
I slip into at night to wash myself

you are the letterbox overflowing with sleeping ladybirds
I check compulsively for mail

you are the curtains of pink candyfloss
I pull closed after the moon comes up

you are the couch made of turnips
I lie on as I wait

you are the carpet made of ripe figs
I dance over on summer mornings

none of this makes sense so it’s possibly a poem
none of this makes sense so

you are the wheelbarrow full of silver bullets
I feed to the garden to make it grow

Paula Harris                            

Paula Harris lives in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where she writes and sleeps in a lot, because that’s what depression makes you do. She won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award. Her writing has been published in various journals, including The Sun, Hobart, Passages North, New Ohio Review, and Aotearotica. She is extremely fond of dark chocolate, shoes and hoarding fabric. website: www.paulaharris.co.nz | Twitter: @paulaoffkilter | Instagram: @paulaharris_poet | Facebook: @paulaharrispoet