Elizabeth Mayhew Matson
Eden

Blinded by a white cherry blossom blizzard,
I feel my way through the garden,
finding you, as always, amongst the roses,
listening close for the secrets of their splendor.
I know you are trying to immortalize this last morning,
struggling to memorize the feeling of running
rough fingers over red silk, of the smooth sides
of every thorn, the hilts of beauty’s tiny swords,
its fragile defenses.

We didn’t know how tall we stood
until we crumbled, falling back
into dust and wind.

The path we walk to the outside disappears
amidst brambles, branches scratching at our ankles,
catching our skin like fishhooks.
We are ensnared, swallowed
by the wilderness that weaves and wraps
its arms around our weak limbs.
When that door of holy light closes behind us,
you turn and say,
I sank my teeth in first,
but you followed.

In the darkness, my crown of leaves
shrivels and decays.

_ _

Elizabeth Mayhew Matson she graduated from Boston University in 2010 with a studied English and religion at Boston University, graduating in 2010. She currently works in academic journals publishing at Wiley & Sons and lives in Jamaica Plain with her husband and their cat, Vinny.

>> Back to Issue 18, 2015