ASHLEY KUNSA

Poem Beginning with Pascal’s Vases

In this poem, I am gratitude. You are the chirp of a cicada

seventeen years in the offing. In this poem, you fill me

the way water fills anything: perfectly and without remorse.

In this poem, I am hanging the sky with lemons

wrung free of their lemon-ness, and you blink once,

twice, to remind me that everything sweet must start somewhere.

Party Trick

here I am open     as a fist again     sucking Reddi-wip from the can

cat purring idly     against my thigh     hairy texts

come in from       a man who loves me     and I don’t    know which one this is

the good one or the bad     the first ingredient cream

I’ve built a life     among strangers     like everyone new does

open as a fig       a wound curdling under moonlight

a mistake made     is a finished thing       but mine are a work in progress

shouldn’t something sour be       orange at least

yellow     tell me what       you think the last is     nitrous

Ashley Kunsa‘s creative work appears in or is forthcoming from more than forty venues including The Writer magazine, Blue Mesa Review, Sycamore Review, and the Los Angeles Review. She is assistant professor of creative writing at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT, where she lives with her husband and two children. You can find her online at www.ashleykunsa.com.