Pirate

Your father burnt you in ways
That make the nights long and wrecked
In a way that my tongue
Free of blasphemy and coarseness cannot soothe

Your father told lies with his hands
Now you walk without delicateness or trepidation
Look at you plundering the seas, sea plunderer!
Taking what you can, sea plunderer! Pirate!

I say to you, you are not God
But let you take me all the same
A rape, a kiss, you have taken root
Your eyes, a sad, sad bluebird

You have killed and maimed
You come from the cold place (south)
A blue, blue welt
You move between my legs, another killing

I will loosen my hair and never tell on you

Orphan

He buckles up his pants
Kisses her hair
And doesn’t understand her

He watched her for a long time
And is not ready to admit
He is out of his depth

She makes him tea
However he likes it
And often

Russian Caravan, Afternoon tea
And cries on the kitchen floor
Sleeveless and without knickers

She is an orphan
She wishes he would leave
Just to come back

Emily Somerset grew up on a hippy commune on the north coast of Australia, leaving home at fourteen, and spending the following years hitchhiking around the country. The last few years  she has call New York home, where she read her poetry in the coffee houses and basements of the village, and busked in the subways and outside the Chelsea Hotel. She now resides in Los Angeles where she has recorded her debut album “Morphine and Cupcakes”.