Poetry by Elaina Whitesell

To lull us, she plunges / her thick, sticky claws into mushy earth and oil // containers, smears her sweet myths on the walls

Mother’s Melittology
by Elaina Whitesell

In walks mama with her candle wax drip
fingers and her crunchy, melodic gate,

pouring cream and confectioner’s sugar
into her bitter coffee as she forms a hive

to hold us all.  She speaks with her thunder
boom singing and wraps us tightly in the folds

of her loose smock.  To lull us, she plunges
her thick, sticky claws into mushy earth and oil

containers, smears her sweet myths on the walls:
now candy murals.  Makes it all work, soft as sin.

She tucks along the edges with her fingers and deposits
us in beds she sweated, to keep us stitched in velvet.

Elaina Whitesell received her bachelor of arts from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. She currently occupies a position as poetry editor for Cleaver Magazine. Her work appears in The RavensPerch.