SK Grout - Two girls peeling apples (New Zealand/United Kingdom)

from #BreakTheBias by Various

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about

SK GROUT (she/they) is a writer, editor and poet. She grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand, lived in Germany and now splits her time between London and Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau. Her debut chapbook, What love would smell like, is with V. Press (2021). She holds a post-graduate degree in creative writing from City, University of London, and is a Feedback Editor for Tinderbox Poetry. Her poetry and reviews are widely published in the US, UK, Europe and the Pacific, including Cordite Poetry Review, dialogist, Glass and Finished Creatures. She was 2nd in the Ambit Poetry Competition 2020. Her poetry annals micro chapbook is 'to be female is to be interrogated' (2018).

skgroutpoetry.wixsite.com/poetry
Twitter/Insta: @ indeskidge

lyrics

TWO GIRLS PEELING APPLES

The sky of 5.47PM takes up a saffron rhythm
and the horizon is fading tiger stripes
all around our heads. The first of the evening’s
moths welcome-dance against the porch light

and we craft something without words or hands.

Spanish speakers like to call it crepúscolo,
but as with all beautiful things, the mood is
untranslatable, slippery language, a sensation
we share across the ebbing gap between us,

a nod of acknowledgement. We press bodies
as we peel the last of the apples, their turning,
twisting skin falling into the shared bucket
at our feet with a satisfying thwup.

Who would build heaven, when this space exists?

Where I can recount the story of Hi’iaka and Hopoe
at the point their myth diverges; they reconcile and
everything is held tight by superseding death, and
your knee kisses mine with multiple intent.

You nod at the right places without really listening,
your superhero skill, content in the knowledge
that you will hear it again, receiving my touch,
returning it with promise.

The evening stretches out infinite and fluid.

credits

from #BreakTheBias, released March 8, 2022
CREDITS:
"Two girls peeling apples" is from the chapbook "What love would smell like" from V. Press.
vpresspoetry.blogspot.com/p/what-love-would-smell-like.html