Ellery Beck

Ars Poetica

Help carry me back
to that body, the blued
vessel. Do you remember

her? I'll rub my eyes, try
to trace her shape
in the dark. I'll find her
figure like the sun as it shimmies 

above the street. Listen:
I'm copying down all
of her small fictions and translating 

them into my own mythologies. This is how
I've come to be. Filling an apothecary
shop with all the ingredients to turn myself

into ritual. Everything becoming  

a spell, a scrap of paper. Yes, we're scrap, possibly
fabric, not yet frayed. You can find
me calloused, creating friction 

with weary hands. You’ll find her
scored, stitched tight, her hair
the thread. Imagine her, sewn in place—body 

blanketed in landscapes, sketched
against each pastoral. Stuck to every page.

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Ellery Beck is a graduate of Salisbury University with a BA in Creative Writing. They have poems published or forthcoming in Passages North, Colorado Review, Atlanta Review, Sugar House Review, New Delta Review and elsewhere. Ellery is also one of the co-founders of Beaver Magazine as well as a reader for Poet Lore.