by Tara A. Elliott
It would be all almonds, the sweet, cocooned belly
of the melon, berries rupturing black against my tongue.
You are crisp sheets in August heat, light
bouncing off swimming pool walls, concrete
in the first moments of rain. You are blue
beyond the sugar maple’s leaves, the river
lapping a splintering pier, the rich earth opening
dark beneath my trowel. You are crickets
chittering through rusted screens, the bark of the night
heron, the shattering of a bottle knocked
to hardwood floor. You are the shard piercing
my fingertip, the bandage staunching the bleed.
You are the wound.
Tara A. Elliott’s poems have appeared in TAOS Journal of International Poetry & Art, The American Journal of Poetry, and Ninth Letter, among others. Executive Director of the Eastern Shore Writers Association, she is also the chair of the annual Bay to Ocean Writers Conference. A recent winner of Maryland State Arts Council’s Independent Artist Award, she has work forthcoming in Cimarron Review.
Hawaii Pacific Review 