Ellen Austin-Li
Ellen Austin-Li’s first full-length collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist, 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist, and runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is forthcoming from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her two chapbooks, Firefly (2019) and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021). Her work appears in Artemis, Thimble Literary, The Maine Review, Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. She’s a Best of the Net nominee and holds an MFA in poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series, Poetry Night at Sitwell’s, in Cincinnati, where she lives.
Cold Moon
I walk farther across the open field
towards the full moon rising—
heavy with promise, a pregnant woman—
but her image in my lens stays the same
distance away, out of reach, not letting me near.
Her bright orb teases me into believing
she is close—I raise my fingers
to touch her cheek, but the mother pulls away.
I drop my hand, shake my head,
hope no one watched
this foolish scene from the hotel
windows overlooking
the way
I’ve learned to never show
anyone what I need.
I drive ten-hour stretches on interstates
to chase this place called home,
but home shrinks away like a lover grown tired
of my neediness. My mother still lives
in the redbrick house where I was raised,
the same curve in the stone path
leading to the front door.
When my sons were young,
I nestled against them so often
I knew their scents, could map the wings
of their bones beneath gossamer skin.
But as they grew, my warmth shrank
like the sun slipping below the horizon:
inevitable, preordained.
I’ve tried to be different
but this chill inhabits me.
The winter my father withered
in a hospice bed parked in the living room,
I bathed him during his last days, turned him
side to side while he slid into unconsciousness,
cared for him down to the tiniest drops
of water placed between parched lips.
But I couldn’t forgive myself
for how I had to escape every few hours
to walk in St. Mary’s Cemetery. Afterwards,
my mother said, you’re certainly a wonderful daughter—
Why hadn’t I heard these words before?
Would I have been different?
Could I have stayed inside? Cried?
Would I have been different?
Could I have stayed inside? Cried?
The night my father died, I stared at the moon
reflected on silvered snow, cold,
dry-eyed.
