Party & Ants

Emily Ellison

Party

The children are screaming
while I eat cake.

Some age like a deliberation of sprinkles laid down,
while some prefer their years thrown like a handful of confetti

until the verdant lawn collects
pastel dye and spoils beneath the costume.

Something for the cat to eat.
Celebration as a form of putting off
the trip to the vet,

delayed removal of wormy infestation
the stomach festers

while sitting amongst
the children, all the same,

eating flowers,
throwing up.

Ants

Scuttle, cream
sucker. You extract
plasma with smugness,
never caring

for that which is ravished,
rendered unsweetened.
You multiply invincibly.
The invisible trickle across one’s skin,
nothing but phantoms.

I used to love someone.

The antennae of desire pricking,
reception of pleasure
as I lowered.
Fingertips,
followed by shiver.
I used to return to sleep when I woke, uneasy,

certain of being touched
yet finding him dozing. It’s the ants, honey
he’d say You’re irresistible, too tempting.

I wonder what the foxglove feels
when the covering begins.!
One hand trailing up and down,
casually, then with fanaticism,
making more of the self
as the self feeds on

the sugar of the tongue caught
between please and don’t.

Emily Ellison is a third year MFA poet at Texas State University, where she also works as an Teaching Assistant for their English faculty. Her writing is primarily inspired by the exploration of my body, of nature, and the interaction/interdependence of the two. Beyond that, her creativity is simply a constant state of "I don't know," and "what if?" To write new worlds into existence is a renewed effort to find a place for my body to belong. Emily lives in San Marcos, Texas with four cats and an abundance of plants (withering at the moment).