Take me to the flower fields overlaid with copper.
Let them be on the railing of your 80 sq. ft. apartment
or the space between the front seats of your car, under the sunroof,
but preferably in the space between where your left arm converges
to the uneasy breaths of you.
I’ll change colors with the season,
and leave the old hues behind to stir and blacken together like the
remnants of an unfinished watercolor.
As you watch me burn you’ll write
about how you’re not the type to put out fires but to start them and
foster them,
to tempt the entire town with the smell of
ambitions finally blazing in spite of a rainy forecast
with the harmony of inimitably forested words.
Scarlet and gold and blood-orange are the colors you can even
persuade the pines into tasting;
the palette of an unyielding last shot at endless todays.

About the Author

Emily Sirko is a junior English major at Kent State University. She likes cold weather, film photography and record players, but above all else, she loves to write. She writes when the world is quiet and does not nag, most often in the space between days and on Sunday afternoons. Her writing usually stems from nature and her attempts to bottle a sample of its breath and transfer it into words, not forgetting to inhale some of it for herself along the way.

Contents

Make Me Like Autumn

About the Author