Ellen Stone teaches at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her poetry collection, The Solid Living World, won the 2013 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press chapbook contest. Ellen’s poems have also appeared in Dunes Review, Melancholy Hyperbole and in the anthology, Uncommon Core, published by Red Beard Press.
I rescue blood roses, so ripe they burst over their thorns like these women heat up the house. Blowsy daughters, sisters — too much inside our skins. Deep in my clavicle I know we are having this kind of summer. Waiting too hard for rain. When it comes, throwing ourselves at it, no umbrellas, all downspouts, loosening staves on the barrels. Reassured by abandon. Gorging on blossoms. Garden, flooded. […]
On the way to the cemetery, late summer gravel road, fine covering of dust layers chicory, Queen Anne’s lace. We search for angels sent to graves too soon. Clamber up smooth granite tombstones in the shade of old oaks saluting the Underhills, Ackleys, Shumways. The grass under our feet is dry, reserved. We try not to yell as we cannon ball off headstones, rising out of the quiet, rectangular […]
