Like Gretchen at the spinning wheel
dreaming of love, we played spin the bottle
hoping it would stop and point
at the boy we had a crush on,
the one who danced in white buck shoes
to Elvis singing Jailhouse Rock,
could swing you round the dance hall floor
and catch you when the music stopped.
At fourteen we were obsessed with love
there were incantations:
“While twisting the stem of the apple
recite the alphabet until the stem
breaks off.” You, left wondering
who is this secret love that begins
with the letter “H”?
Or like prayers over the innocent daisy:
“He loves me, he loves me not”.
What did we know about love
in those days, always hopeful
as if it were about to happen,
dreaming at the spinning wheel
waiting for the thread to grow long
enough for Love to find its way to you.
— from Juniper Volume 5, Issue 3