the cigarette burns my body alive into a cherry

and this is the natural order of living:
one thing in the hands of another,
one thing looking up
and frothing for tenderness.

so my crimson flesh tends to its pit,
and the sun
splits into rivulets
the ocean a beautiful gown,
the sequins
threaded with a thread of need,
and the seed
seeps up water
like an undone sorrow
to grow the oak
tree,
and then to dance.

and gorgeous, the thin raspy stem
asks for a spirit of wind
to sex it up
into a young woman.

so who is my mother: the crumpled umber skin

rocking her blossom to sleep,
or the cloud which shades into darkness
so the baby can weep
on its own?

My bio is as follows: Emily Ellison is a second year MFA poet at Texas State University, where she also works as an 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).