Ellen Gerneaux Woods is a San Francisco Bay Area author of The Watchful Heart Recedes (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and Warriors in Transition (Word Project Press, 2014). Her recent work appears in The Potomac Literary Magazine, Story Sanctum, Overgrowth Literary Press, Workers Write, Engine Idling, The Monterey Poetry Review, Snapdragon, among others. She was a judge for Keats Literary Competition from 2019 to 2021 and joined the prose staff at The MacGuffin, a print journal, in 2021.
                                           Breath

five haikus
i.
up in the attic
I hammer my wild way out
sinking breath by breath
ii.
down the bannister
elephant smiles before me
blossoms in their trunks
iii.
releasing my debts
those heavy rocks I carry
freedom’s face appears
iv.
go down far enough
a foreign land emerges
original mind
v.
my thirst a mirage
at the well I need not drink
plum tree overheadSouthern Magnolia

the gold appears as warmth in the                                            center
emanating from the starburst hub

it is a warmth   contained   owned                    
never given away      not overcome 
                    with itself

merely inhabiting overlapping
alabaster leaves

the     amber reminds gently that
at the core a fire burns
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