STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
DECEMBER ELLIS
my feet disappear underneath soil
as our garden moves beyond april’s breath.
last summer,
my father overdosed,
and my mother
shut the world out.
even her body
bloomed a graveyard,
and our pantry was forever stocked—
vodka, tonic, gin.
grief clung to our hallway,
garlanding around our staircase railing
like christmas morning.
a body with no bones,
rosemary with no soil.
rosy summers
bend for rootless winters,
always.
my body is thin—fleeting.
a mother’s body is holy.
her body is the first summer you eat watermelon.
it is damp soil after a long-overdue monsoon.
December Ellis is a poet from Phoenix, Arizona, and graduated in 2014 from Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts. She is currently working on her MFA at Northern Arizona University. Her poems have been published with Thin Air Magazine, Rabid Oak and forthcoming in Tiger Moth Review. She recently won the Charles E. Bull Award from Northern Arizona University. December self-published her first book of poetry, Things You Don’t Talk About, in June 2022. When she is not working, you can find her reading poetry, practicing piano, or hiking desert mountains.
