Live Encounters Poetry & Writing August 2024
My dearest, darling everything, poem by Paris Rosemont.
My dearest, darling everything
I love your dextrous, strong and tender hands;
cartographer—keen circler of my maps.
How you adore me fierce, without demands
for me to bend or change till I relapse
to factory settings, bland as CO(g).
A thirsting fish, I thrash inside my bowl
all goggle-eyed and gasping at my need
for you. I’d give up civil rigmarole
to lick the knife’s edge of your intellect.
No pleasure comes without a smidge of pain—
for you I’d gladly die the little death:
again, again, again, again, again!
And when I reach Saint Peter’s Gates above,
I shall festoon hot entrails of my love.
© Paris Rosemont
Paris Rosemont is an Asian-Australian poet and author of poetry collection Banana Girl (WestWords, 2023), shortlisted by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for the 2024 Mary Gilmore Award for a first volume of poetry. Paris’s poetry has been widely published and has won awards both locally and internationally, including first place in the Hammond House Publishing Origins Poetry Prize 2023 (UK) and shortlisted for the International Proverse Poetry Prize 2023 (Hong Kong). She takes delight in bringing her poetry to life through multi-disciplinary modes of expression, including theatrical performance. Paris may be found on Instagram @msparisrose, Facebook www.facebook.com/parisrosemont or at www.parisrosemont.com