A poem by Elsie Mellor
from where we began, i left
a thousand miles ablaze through
mountains and snow-cut rivers.
while the sun burned your back, i lay
where flowers closed in the night.
you were the month in which
rain kissed us clean.
we played to buckle the fall;
your fingers brighter than light
speeding the length of our lives
together. i bound the view from all
my star-crossed cities, tied to oceans
built to land,
blinded by you
i came
to bite the citrus of your lips.
our home born by books and migrant
dust expelled from the gentle stir
of our limbs, hanging in still sunlight,
were months regained in static seconds.
in one moment,
against the summer gleam and
the laughter of bodies, shifting
drinks and timid touch
i fell
beating in fragile flight
to the breath of your eyelids,
and how they surrendered, so slow.
outstretched, in all the comfort of that
night, you tasted sweet, like blood-orange
and blinding gold. you consumed
all light, forever
a separate midnight away, you pull
at the heart while mine remains,
a ghost pain
Elsie Mellor teaches piano and creative writing in Melbourne and has studied writing and publishing at RMIT and The University of Melbourne. Elsie has been a fiction writer for the online journal Feminartsy and has been featured in numerous university publications. She is currently penning her first novel.
