an attempt to gather rosebuds
As if one could determine the quality of a place by the type of flowering
tree outside the window where one most writes. Datura, bougainvillea,
and once, an insatiable dogwood that smelled like the kind of sex
one has after a night of drinking something mixed with simple syrup
most of which ends up on the floor. As if a place could be that easy,
as easy as a body. As if the floor could hold that much. As if we ought
to measure worth by the grandiosity of the show a plant puts on
when it is dying. Even if the dying is uneven. Even if we are taught
to gather rosebuds. Even if we think about rosebuds monomaniacally.
Even if we hope the gathering and the thinking will be enough. As if
we ever had any say in enoughness. As if roses grow everywhere.
July Westhale is a poet and translator born in the American Southwest. Their books include moon moon, Trailer Trash, Unmade Hearts, and Via Negativa, which Publishers Weekly called "stunning" in a starred review. Ocean Vuong chose Westhale as the 2018 University of Arizona Poetry Center Fellow. Their translation of the Chilean poet Rolando Cardenas' collected works was selected for the 2026 Unsung Masters Series (forthcoming from Pleiades Press). They have work in McSweeney’s, DIAGRAM, The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Huffington Post, among others. July is represented by Carolyn Forde at Transatlantic and lives in Tucson, where they are adapting their novel to film. www.julywesthale.co