Elinor Ann Walker

Haunt Like This

Don’t mind when beetles
swarm on summer nights.

Find a cicada’s fragile hull
attached to tree bark by one

jointed leg, white strands
of old lungs still aloft

above shell spiracles. Watch
the June bug’s iridescent green

zag a crazy line through
unmown grass. Want

to haunt like this. Without
question. Visibly. To be heard. No

second guessing. A hum,
vibrato, buzz. Trade

exuviae for air, claw
out with broken

fingernails, wings.

Back to Issue XIII…

Elinor Ann Walker (she/her/hers) is the author of Fugitive but Gorgeous, winner of the 2024 Sheila-Na-Gig First Chap Prize (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), and Give Sorrow (Whittle Micro-Press), both forthcoming. Recent and forthcoming poems appear in AGNI, Bayou Magazine, Bear Review, Nimrod, Plant-Human Quarterly, Plume, Poet Lore, The Southern Review, Terrain, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, lives in the Appalachian foothills, and is on the poetry staff at River Heron Review. Find her online: https://elinorannwalker.com.