Olas Altas

Stumbling past the Hotel La Siesta in Old
Mazatlán, when I saw the plaque commemorating
Kerouac. It had a quote from On the Road,
the one about the only ones for him
being the mad ones; the ones
who never yawn or
talk about a common thing, who burn,
burn.. That one. I heard shouts
and turned around. Over the frosted-
glass water, an orange sun
headed toward the sea. Instantly
I had the feeling, something
had gone wrong. I saw queues, for death

pills. The black shore
glistened. The sun let go
a distended water drop
plunging from an eave.
A man yelled:
5:59! - and pressed a button
on his watch, for no reason I could think of. I

never realized sunsets
could be like that. I thought they were
enlarged and coloured in and
manipulated for dramatic scenes
did I? There's no way of knowing,
now. Later, I was alone in the dark
with the only sound, the wind.

The dead dog

which I almost trip over -
they drop like flies (and dogs)
southeast of the city where
I go to do laundry, and two girls
get one on each side of me and yell
something in my ears about not being from here
and having a dumb hair colour, as far as I can
tell - the dead dog, which I almost
trip over, evidently only breathing
through my nose belatedly -
is a beige pelt, on a beige
mound of dirt, with terracotta
streaks and cookie wrappers
swathed around it. I consider that one
of the advantages of suicide is the opportunity
it affords, to exert some control over
the state in which your remains are found,
maybe. Although I guess this dead dog
is decomposing; it's going back
to the earth, providing nutrients
for new life, and all that. I guess
there are beetles and stuff under there.
I look at it for a while, but I can't
see that. To me it's the final
horrorshow; this tufted flesh and
earth. The living at least
have the guile to bury themselves deeper.



About the author:
Rose Hunter has had poetry and fiction in publications including Contemporary Verse 2, Geist, On Spec, Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, and Wet Ink (Australia). She is an Australian expat living in Toronto.

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