Elapsing by Sarah Park (18, Philippines)*

The woods are bare             
              cleaved of tangerine,
                                                        apricot, clementine, 
                            pomegranate leaves falling on already fallen leaves
                                          versicolor 
in the dirt

---

​he is an impulse
                            his hand running the rise
and falls of her throat. her hair falling
                                          over his knees. his finger
pressed in her mouth
                            between the soft of her cheek and
                                          her porcelain teeth. feels it

like this autumnal affection
                            ardent affliction and the flesh of it
                                          rounding a sphere through her left cheek
                            warming in her spit

The season sliding through their fingers. her dress
                                                                                                  slipping off
                            pooling silk at her feet
    
everything in her eyes
              girlish turning dark
snuffing out the autumn light


lying face down in dirt
                                          soaked in equinox rains
              eyes darker than soil than
                            burnt fruit souring. ash-soft hairs
                                          atomized in the wind.


in the instance of such
              ephemeral things, she tells herself that
                                          the
              violence
                            cannot help but be
associative.

He comes out of the woods.
              palming the milkflower 
                                          plucked
                                                                      from between her thighs.
        

              her autumn dress and the fallen fruit

                                          ripe to the woods floor.