Mary Ellen Talley

Your Photo I Took Inside Simon Prim’s Bookshop in Kinsale

Here you are, a supplicant, genuflected at a row of Irish books
with one hand reaching, as if fingering relics among the books.

Not that you knelt to propose marriage years ago, more like we
assumed our union after discovering our mutual love of books.

Inside Simon’s shop, we found poetry, “The Stinging Fly,”
and an early Salmon Press volume, “Gonella,” among the books.

With quirky upstairs, this one of many shops with book jackets
in windows to lure us in, to devour Galway and Dublin books.

How grand then, to enjoy designer soup and sandwich next door
at the Poet’s Corner after buying a stack of Simon’s books.

Leaving Kinsale, a most propitious purchase, one lilac blossom
duffel bag, now needed to haul homeward bound books.

We found each town had bookshops that to us were so like
museums we had to drag ourselves away from shelves of books.

Back home in Seattle, surrounded by unpacked treasures,
I, Mary Ellen, recline with you to read amid our shelves of books.

Hiking to Snow in Summer

She climbs over slate and shale of an old avalanche chute

‌            Cold air from the falls mists her face
‌            as summer water dances over lodge pole pine

Roots and boots do their thing as switchbacks scissor the hillside

‌            Raspberries vermillion‌     Leaves viridian
‌            She dodges a slurry of horseflies in hot wind of the rise,

rubs a cluster of snow crystals into the bark of her skin
as tingles erupt into goosebumps
She collects huckleberries in a spent water bottle

‌            and stops to scan a vista of peaks beyond
‌            Down the hillside, she eyes the spent zigzags of her path,

inhales the fragrance of damp cedar branches

‌            The tight-knee return descent is part of the bargain
‌            Branches joust in the gusty wind and slanted rain
‌            Palms of her hands could be pinecones and needles

Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have been published in Gyroscope, Deep Wild, Willawaw, and Banshee among others. Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations. She has three chapbooks: Postcards from the Lilac City from Finishing Line Press, Taking Leave from Kelsay Press, and Infusion online at Red Wolf Journal. Her website is maryellentalley.com.