Darling –

 I’m trying to remember my first orchid.

                         – Rachel Carson to Dorothy Freeman

For Rachel Bush

​

​Susan performed one song and I must confess, I was taken aback. I had always thought

her talent fairly pedestrian, but you would not believe the improvements she has made

this past summer. She has somehow trained her voice to be very full, almost erotically

voluminous, like hydrangeas, if that means to you what it does for me. The best I could

muster was a borrowed duet, which actually was a great deal of fun although there was

a bad moment when Esther did not know where I was. I had told her after the chorus we

would go straight to the bridge, but she must not have heard me and by the time we

found each other she was sobbing and I was panicking and calling out and darling, I

really do not know what I would have done next.

Louise Wallace

Louise Wallace is the author of two collections of poetry published through Victoria University Press and was the Robert Burns Fellow for 2015 at the University of Otago, Dunedin. She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal for New Zealand writers under 25 years of age.