Joshua St. Claire
This year, the roses are different. Their petals are softening while his flesh is hardening. He
traipses through the streets of Montmartre during the golden hour—neither dawn nor dusk, but
also both and neither—an unchanging hour of changing light. Their hands, the soft-scented
petals of the roses of Montmartre, reach for him and caress his hair, his face, his neck, his
shoulders, and the small of his back. But even during this golden hour, there is night. He squints
his nothingeyes at the roses, bathed in golden light, which fall forever into the void within. The
petals press him again. He tolerates their frenzied caresses, inflamed, as they are, by his Stygian
gaze. Their scent, now more and more insistent, brushes against his gilded flesh, but he stays
still, stays still, stays still, stays still, stays…
the first cucumber blossom
serene on the sod
late frost
Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania who works as a financial director for a large non-profit. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Lana Turner, Sugar House Review, Two Thirds North, Allium, and The Inflectionist Review, among others. His work has appeared in the Dwarf Stars Anthology and he is the winner of the Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award and the Trailblazer Award.