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industry can make pinks now that are 99-100% permanent
pink keychain with my sister’s face etched into it
pink quartzite bench on a grassy Fort Collins hill,
pink tulips the neighbors planted, pink
candles, pink tattoo of a pink last-gift candle, pink
vases, materials as metaphors—the necessary attempt
at conflation, pink bracelets with her
name—color is more symbolic than sensory
every skin fleck and fingernail
gone to an impalpable gray
in May with its hibiscus pink and its leaving
crabapples, soapwart, begonia
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This selection comes from Janelle Adsit’s collection Unremitting Entrance available now from Spuyten Duyvil. Purchase your copy here!
Janelle Adsit‘s poetry has appeared in publications such as Sixth Finch, Confrontation, The Cultural Society, and Lalitamba. She lives in northern California where she teaches creative writing at Humboldt State University. www.janelleadsit.net
Ben McClendon is a PhD student in creative writing at the University of Tennessee. He previously studied poetry at Northern Arizona University after teaching high school English for several years. His poems have appeared in Indiana Review, Yemassee, Ceasura, Chariton Review, Redivider, Rattle, and elsewhere. He is currently Assistant Poetry Editor for Grist: The Journal for Writers and a poetry editor for Four Ties Lit Review. Ben lives with his husband in Knoxville.
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