For eight years, you rioted—decanters of orange-yellow bloom, sweeter than spilled perfume, curved thorns like cats' claws. Unsheathed, you would have covered the house like Sleeping
Beauty's castle. Last winter's ice and endless chill undid you. I stare at your pale amputated heart and the clumps of leaves around it, false green. The landscaper rests her saw against the steps, says fresh loam might help you. A kind lie.
late spring
early fall
wind chimes whispering
Angele Ellis thinks of her childhood imaginary friends every time she logs on to her computer. An award-winning writer whose poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in over 70 journals and 15 anthologies, she is author of Arab on Radar (Six Gallery), whose poems earned her an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; Spared (A Main Street Rag Editors' Choice Chapbook); and Under the Kaufmann's Clock (Six Gallery), a fiction/poetry hybrid inspired by Pittsburgh, with photographs by Rebecca Clever.
