Adele Evershed
“Next Summer You Will Dance to a Different Beat”
witching hour—
a barn owl calls
my bluff
I woke at 3 am again, a song playing in my head from a long-ago concert. A streaky bacon boy, cap on backwards, sang about wanting my body. Well, not exactly mine—more likely the woman in the front row who was throwing her body around as if she had St. Vitus’ dance.
The men filmed her, nudging and laughing at their own private peep show. She lifted her skirt and we all got an eyeful—a black thong and a cherry tattoo. The man behind me chortled—that’s the money shot right there.
a flutter of black
in a passing man’s hello—
bat orchid
The last time I saw her was outside the venue, her messy bun listing like a drunk as she squatted in the gutter. The contents of her bag spilled over the pavement—a lipstick, a Nokia phone, and packets and packets of fortune cookies. She cracked one open, crumbling the pale beige biscuit, read the wisp of paper, then let it go. It danced in the breeze of people pushing past her. Then she ripped open another—this fortune she slipped in her pocket.
All this time later there are so many things I don’t understand—why I wake at 3 am and lie listening to owls, why a woman would choose a thong over seamless knickers and why I’ve never found a fortune worth pocketing.
double cherry—
the last bite sweet
with second chances
About the Author
Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer living on the American East Coast. Her work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Prune Juice, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of Turbulence in Small Spaces and The Brink of Silence, with a new haiku collection, Pressed Between Palms, forthcoming.