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2409 Jefferson Street
Port Townsend, WA
360-379-1086

Ellen Elizabeth  

Trail Signs

We thumped up flaming huckleberry slopes

where columbine resisted autumn’s push

to clean the place for winter’s dump of snow.

Beyond the broken bridge and in the hush

where mountain spirits waited wise and still,

I sang old medicine to them and he

just listened, squeezed my hand and stood until

my eyes sought his beneath the cedar trees.

The way he hiked with little word that day,

in rain on Mount Rainier to Summerland,

and didn’t push us faster, yet kept pace—

I chose to pay attention to that man.

            When we descended through the heavy rain,

            our hearts, like nurse logs, held a seedling gain.

“Trail Signs” won a fourth-place prize in the rhyming poem category

                                    of the 2005 Writer’s Digest Contest

Words in a Sexual Abuse Survivor’s Group

The word trust rolled out and it

was the lime green flavor in the gumball

machine. My whole body pulled in

and said, “Yuk. I don’t want that one.

There goes a whole quarter.” Take trust

and add an H. H stands for hell.

Put the headman of hell into trust

and you get thrust, and I’m asking

what was thrust into trust there

in the darkened rooms of childhood

so that now it ends up falling below

cigarette butts and sticky coffee cups.

Silence. That’s an S. Remove silence

from thrust and you get truth.

And the truth is there was no God

in the hell that was thrust into trust.

God rolled out pink, the color you think

will be bubblegum, but in your mouth

tastes like hairspray. Spit it out.

The half-formed pink wad sticks

on a red straw. The top of the trashcan

swings over it like the arm of a priest

giving last rites. God begins with G.

G sits in the middle of anger, which rolled

out purple and tasted like grape. We chewed

on that until our jaws ached. The healer

woman said, “Get angry and you stop being

a victim,” but I’m feeling someone might die

if that got started. Still, there’s that G

in the middle. God, the backbone of anger.

That puts matters in a whole new posture.

Anger could be holy. And a God willing to be

center of my anger might be one to trust.

                        from On Sandstone Singing

Advertising Chocolate

Godiva, divine maker of chocolate truffles,

advertises salvation in a taste,

no repentance needed, just indulge.

They have studied our churches,

learned the business of selling.

They know the long history of trifles

and heaven gained through the tongue.

“Confess with your mouth and you will

be redeemed,” wails the holy roller,

while in the cathedral a priest waves

white wafers before the devout

who would taste the son of God

and find paradise. I am the word,

I am the bread of life, I am the luscious

richness of delectable dark chocolate.

Behold, your salivation is near;

many are called, but few are choosey.

“Speak your desire,” Herod urged Salome.

Over and over the kings place heaven

on the fervent platter of indulgence.

                        from On Sandstone Singing