Ephemera

Ephemera

Anne McElrath

In Memory of Leslie Anne Bustard

This evening as your brain lay bleeding
in a bed somewhere I took my leave,
too strained to be contained,
the life of me leaking out the edges.

Warm softness of evening betrays you.
Maple leaves flicker, freshly red with golden light,
dogwoods pant, ragged at petal’s lip —
white, crumpling
like paper gowns, stale sheets…
I brush an ant from my skin
and watch it struggle
to straighten thin limbs.

Of course, April is cruel
after all, Eve believed herself Goddess
in a garden, among tender ferns uncurling,
tense as unborn fists
against the wall of the womb
against the skin of the world,
caught between the shallows and the far shore.

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Anne McElrath
Writer & Poet

Anne lives in Seattle, Washington where she recently obtained her MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Seattle Pacific University. This is her debut publication.

Photography by Jean Carlo Emer