THE HAWTHORN

Sophie Emerson

In her sepia dress
Under sepia skies
She weeps and cries
as I watch.

The trees weep too
In their fairy grove.
I wear the tulips she once wove,
And I watch.

It is weepy twilight here
And thick as breathing. 
We exist separately but I hear her heaving
Heavy sobs in this open clearing.

My hawthorn cries too.
Look how precious they appear!
Snarled in one another’s arms.

She is a nestled acorn
Fitted to her tree hole
Like a key to a lock.
Head bowed; roots planted.
She sits firmly. 

Nature’s whore, she weeps with the trees
And I watch.
This whiplash sepia painting,
I exist in its blurry frame.

I watch the dozy bee
Land on a flat maple
Sprouting from the veins of her neck.
It buzzes and fusses around her.