Carson Wolfe
RAINBOW GATHERING
My tent neighbour chakra dances at dawn to open
her third eye, which means she is open-minded.
Hasn’t worn shoes for years, drinks her own
menstrual blood. At the mention of her father,
she retreats to the woods, throws rocks at nothing.
Saffron says the father transitioned into the mother,
in the same tone she tells everyone that Butterfly
went to private school and Greg eats dairy in secret.
Alexander Skarsgård’s hippie twin dances naked
to the djembe, I don’t know if I want to be him
or fuck him. I do know how to wipe my arse
with water, lemon, and my own hand. I know
no one at the fire circle wants to hear Wonderwall.
I know you can rock up to the sober healing
of a Rainbow Gathering, build your own community
in the parking lot, eat enough shrooms to eclipse
the confines of your earthbound body.
LEARNING TO DIVE
I could tell her to pull it back up
but her boyfriend is cannon balling
on the other side of the jetty, unaware
her strapless bikini has slipped
low enough for me to see
how their dates end, his hands
fumbling into a bra he can’t unclasp.
She bends her knees, curls her toes
around the edge and shows me
another dive. Revealing a little bit more
about why I launch, again and again
into the brunt sting of a belly flop.
We climb out, dripping, watch carefully
this time, she says, and I do.
Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet and winner of New Writing North’s Debut Poetry Prize (2023). Their work has appeared in Rattle, The North, New Welsh Review, Evergreen Review, and The Penn Review. They live in Manchester UK with their wife and three daughters.