Amulets
by Bailey Burnette
by Bailey Burnette
We sit in these wine-stained, burgundy wingbacks,
Cloaked
in the velvet security of affinity,
Unaware
of the transcendent grit held hidden in your back pocket.
With
Black Magic in our cups, too much sugar, and the occasional
Sigh
of familiarity, destiny, I see someone new in you.
I
feel power in the touch as your gift falls into my palm,
As
though they had craved to feel my skin after all these lives,
To
smell my musk, alluring in its warmth and potency. The scent
Of
us. Brilliance permeates our space; it lingers, and we feel.
We
see, through hazy filters of mist and illusion, our ghosts among the
coffee splattered wood floors and acoustic musings of artists,
The
other in rose-tinted petticoats, walking. You wave a fan as
Soft
dampness rests on your flushed cheeks, and I whisper a slow-motion
drama.
Pale,
pastel earrings adorn my ears; and you touch them.
An
ephemeral twinkling, seizing our mystic, sealing it into antiquity.
Beauty
is not lost on our history; we have survived through it all.
Beauty,
at its most precious, evades death; we are living testaments.
Our
loveliness lies within its persistence and trust,
In
knowing our sisterhood catapults us through to the next moment.
About
Bailey Burnett:
She is a first-year graduate student studying English at Ball State
University in Muncie, Indiana. She recently earned a Bachelor’s
Degree in English, with a concentration in creative writing and
minors in literature and women’s studies, at Indiana
University-Purdue University Columbus. She won two awards during her
senior year at IUPUC: Most Outstanding Student in Liberal Arts and
Best English Essay. She recently had four poems accepted for
presentation at Sylvia Plath: Letters, Words and Fragments, an
international conference held at Ulster University in Belfast,
Northern Ireland.