#the sharpening

[tupelopress]

(Dear Della, everything lodged between parentheses eventually comes out of its cave.)

From Ellen Dore Watson's "Parentheses," The Sharpening

[tupelopress]

What is there, once the lightning bugs go inside their tiny invisible houses, and leave us in the big dark? Twenty-odd years under one blanket, for you to wake up hungry? I used to float mornings in your nearby absence, paper turning downstairs, chirpy kid noise. Today's dream-drowse: I wake, hand flung on the half-written, smudge-lovely page of a child. I am not a vessel, hold nothing, can't float, refuse to sink. I'm gutted, chilled, shorn of seed. I turn toward the catbird's nonsense. Across town, two people rise in unison, one of them is you.

"After the Lightning Bugs," Ellen Dore Watson, The Sharpening

[youreyeslooklikeblueberries]

I wonder if when I get home those petals will still be luminous and melting in the dirt. I'm thinking maybe I need them. I'm saying what would I do without your mouth?

Ellen Watson - Petals in the Dirt

[youreyeslooklikeblueberries]

I wonder if when I get home those petals will still be luminous and melting in the dirt. I'm thinking maybe I need them. I'm saying what would I do without your mouth?

Petals in the Dirt - Ellen Dore Watson