Sarah Carey
Sarah Carey is an award-winning veterinary public relations specialist, science writer and poet. She holds a master’s degree in English with a creative writing concentration from Florida State University. Her work has appeared in Rattle, The Carolina Quarterly, Portland Review, Concho River Review, South Dakota Review, Arsenic Lobster and other journals. Her debut chapbook of poems, The Heart Contracts, (Finishing Line Press) was published in 2016. She works for the University of Florida and lives in Gainesville.
Exotic Taste
Where was I when the fabricator told us
he could scan our remodeling plans,
could colorize and digitize them
with the best cuts from our granite slabs?
Or when, after reviewing the countertop layout,
you pushed back and said: There’s not enough river
in our vanity, couldn’t I see that someone put uniformity
over flow? Couldn’t I understand the mistake?
After all, we chose Typhoon Bordeaux
for its movement and rich energy. I said,
Tell me again how we became engaged
so passionately about a stone.
Drawing over drawings, you convey your views
from bathroom to cooktop, honing a compromise
I struggle to grasp, so look away.
It’s not that I don’t listen, I do,
it’s that slabs quarried in Brazil have become our exotic
— queue a sawyer, a savior, a template, a taste
of where we’ll place our books and elbows,
plates and vases, toiletries, park our jewelry
read cards of sympathy and thanks.
Our house will be a perfect world, congealed
like Marvell’s drop of dew, our heaven-less on earth,
reflected in the island’s sealed, polished face.