Against Aphasia by Erin Wilson

summer comes again
and all of the white things
tear divots out of the darkness:

snowdrop, strawberry bloom, chokecherry blossom

i wait beside the black babbling brook of things
for the names to drift back like seedpods
into the vicious fissures of my mind  






Erin Wilson's poems have appeared previously at Poppy Road Review, as well as Peacock Journal, MockingHeart Review, and Mobius: the Journal of Social Change. She lives in a small town in northern Ontario.

Surrender by Erin Wilson

lakeside again, no longer wanting to wait at the door,
the woman begins unlatching her earlobes and bra straps,

all of her mythed-out rememberings and imaginings,
steps out of her delicate skin with a flick of her toes,

lets down each book she's read and held in her milk glands,
sets out her turtle-slow sorrows to crawl off eternal,

unfastens her hair, murmur of blackbirds turned fast to fire,
and sends each cell off to simmer and simper

out over the surface of water.
the morning has called her this one last time,

and finally the woman has stopped trying to answer.

erin wilson's poems have recently appeared in Rust + Moth, Autumn Sky Poetry, and Up the Staircase Quarterly, among others. She writes, runs, and takes photographs in a small town in northern Ontario, where she sometimes encounters a wolf or two when crossing the bridge at night.

Cantilevered by Erin Wilson

our house was never Pentecost bright,
but a more lukewarm, #23, whitewash.
vinyl siding outside, sensible,
inside: curtains, cushions neat and narrow.
my mother smoked, read romance, bored,
regularly vacuumed vagrant ash.
we ate from white plates, gray meat,
root vegetables and gravy.
the tv came on again at six pm,
having been turned off briefly at five.
the only talk of god was ... well, none,
but i prayed in private, read the bible
(where on earth did it come from?)
in my parent's alcove window,
12 years old, casting eyes upward.
a small prickly pear sustained itself
on a living room end table
in a terracotta pot,
flowered sometimes.
i stole behind locked doors in socked feet
coaxing mosquitoes onto my body,
high-breathed, impassioned,
anxious for penetration.






Erin Wilson writes, takes photos, and runs in and around a small town in Ontario.