Melissa Eleftherion
Gutter Flower
eight year old girl on the sidewalk playing jacks there a box of
leftover porn there there daddy
eleven year old girl at the diner in a halter dress b e c k o n in g
man’s licking lips
fourteen year old girl walking the avenue of eyeballs an OTB sideshow
the curdling gawk & greased taunts it counted cement boxes
sixteen year old girl staged in a wet tee shirt its nipples hung, grit &
sobbing rubbing the after bourbon & bathroom graffiti
seventeen year old girl the aborted summer sun the slapping a witness a hole
in the door
it left a body it left a killing jar
it left its body there in the dirt lot there there
catalpa
tiny glands of heart leaf
the inside of a blossom
radial star a first from the bottom a fist
flowers a radiolaria a burst a bloom
lilac
white & yellow
the thing that
used to hit me
heavy frost makes for thicker bark
the tree her bruised shadow made
a slightly hairy green
About Melissa Eleftherion
Melissa Eleftherion grew up in Brooklyn. She is the author of huminsect, prism maps, Pigtail Duty, the leaves the leaves, green glass asterisms, and several other chapbooks. Her first full-length collection, field guide to autobiography, is forthcoming from H_NGM_N. Founder of the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange, Melissa lives in Mendocino County where she works as a Teen Librarian, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series at the Ukiah Library. More of her work can be found at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.