Bailey Willes
Bailey Willes is a Salt Lake City based writer and poet. She recently completed her Art History undergraduate degree from Westminster College with an English minor. She was selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2022 Westminster Student Poetry Contest for her poem “Love in a Mist” featured in ellipsis… literature & art journal and on Poets.org for the 2022 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. Her short story “Pleasant Grove” is published in Stirring: A Literary Collection. Her poetry and artwork have also been featured in Pencilings Literary Magazine, and her artwork has been shown and awarded at the Springville Museum of Art.
Shangri-Lane
Not after dinner, we go to the back porch
where the snails leave their post-shower snot
glistening in the almost-sundown
filling in the gaps where the grey hound kicked up
crab grass playing fetch with herself
littering the kitchen tile on her way to the oven
to bone-beg
we take our blotted bowls out back to watch
the sun sag low
heavy as light can be
under the laurel trees
our mother Daphne grew
This is the fresh-daisy neighborhood
where we girls learn to suck the marrow
from celery sticks
where, I found how to be selfish
with a paring knife,
an apple, and an hour to kill
We are the apple blossom
greeting committee
languid as drooping hyacinths
at the door
we’ll hand you
curdled charity and little laurel-leaf cuttings
You won’t be happy here
but you’ll be safe
tucked between the amber shelves of
sapling girlhood and evergreen woman
half-nourished and tangled up with perennial Apollo
whispering in his bum-ear
dirty nothings just to pass the
fledgling-time