Ambitions of Love

by SK Grout

Dainius N.

On the way home I carry the moment all the streetlamps come on at once

upon my back. I’m bent toward my toes with the weight of them, caught

in the warm-down post-game. Neighbours’ footpaths house more

cigarette butts than I am prepared for. As the light oranges more into the evening,

twirling and curling off the knife-light, I inch little by little to upright. By the time

I reach your letterbox flooded with so much light to hear the doorbell’s call

and response to the dog’s barking, I am no longer an elderly man.

The last uncorking happens as the lock clacks back and the air stirs to opening

into a blue so sparkling I am breathless, ready to carry this new weight, tender.

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SK Grout grew up in Aotearoa/New Zealand, has lived in Germany and now splits her time as best she can between London and Auckland. She is the author of the micro chapbook “to be female is to be interrogated” (2018, the poetry annals). She is a Feedback Editor for Tinderbox Poetry and a Poetry Editor at honey & lime literary magazine. Her work also appears in Crannóg, Landfall, Rising Phoenix Press, Banshee Lit, Parentheses Journal, Barren Magazine and elsewhere. More information here: https://skgroutpoetry.wixsite.com/poetry