Emily Ellison
and if to disappear is to appear
as breath is a cycle of light
permeable and thus permeated
filled and bespeckled, the splendor of dust is
all that has entered and left
the newborn
still, and so is
the cicada in or outside of herself?
the insect is and was and so is
and so is you
and you
pulling the body loose from its powder
the wings of flight
cocoon
time as time unfleshes.
dismembered mother
when did you last
grind your fingers into grit
into the soil of your maiden land
and taste of fossils, and of fathers--
the first which is not first but at least.
when did you last swallow yourself
as dirt?
have you held it in your rib like a snake?
all the small plants reaching reach
the limit of their extension
until the sun sets them down and long
as rows of ants
and vines
and water which wants to be the baby’s cheek--
the hand I return to,
the howl of the willow
tree lingering on the moth’s
eruption.
blush of mountain laurel
I never intended to love you
shortly,
to be blown by a breeze
of someone else’s
mouth,
to taste honeycomb
as it dripped.
but the body
in oblong bloom
will not permit
my heart’s murmur
a longevity, to hum
like the bee
entering.
reaching
every tongue up,
you taste
the sky
divorced of skin,
for I cannot hold
myself
against
your peony of chest,
though
my vase
wanted
to cradle
and sip
your twilight
lake.
like the blush
of mountain
laurel,
my love is just
a jagged
arrangement
of petalled hands.
I cannot hold
the sun.
--
Emily Ellison is a second year MFA poet at Texas State University, where she also works as a Teaching Assistant for their English faculty. Her work has appeared in Southword, After the Pause, and Haiku Journal, and is upcoming in several places. Emily lives in San Marcos, Texas with two cats and an abundance of plants (withering at the moment).