Salt Roses
by and published in Edition Ten of Pomegranate
I lowered you gentle
so the water lapped your hurt,
dipped a pockmarked plastic jug
to the brim, and tried to draw
the pain, the skin
at the small of your back,
where the bloom was:
where your roots dug deep
while thorns beneath
pressed on, up, towards the sun
which smeared the bathroom wall
in thick gold streaks
and made salt roses
of your cheeks.
I saw then how it must have been:
soft woollen mitts at night, cool calamine;
that small sequestered scar
at your jaw, dancing the lip-line.
Emily Blewitt
Emily Blewitt is 24 years old and originally from a sleepy seaside town in South Wales. She has participated in poetry workshops run by Saskia Hamilton, and was recently published in Bolts of Silk, Cadaverine and The Guardian. Emily was a ‘Judge’s Choice’ in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly April 2010 Competition, and won the 2010 Cadaverine/Unity Day Competition with her poem ‘Still Life’. Currently she works in Cardiff, where she is to begin a PhD this year.