‘Cherry Knot’ & ‘Pinned Wings’
Bailey Burroughs is a Canadian illustrator and multidisciplinary artist based in London, UK. Drawing since childhood, her work weaves together folklore, the paranormal, and the quiet mythologies of the natural world. Through a feminine lens, she explores storytelling that is both intimate and otherworldly—blurring the line between dream and decay. Her practice moves across mediums, guided by a deep curiosity for what lingers in shadow, silence, and bloom.
Cherry Knot
I bet my hands taste like yours,
Our fingers interlinked in a cherry knot.
I lick the sweetness of your red lips,
That glisten like a river at daybreak.
In spring, the world renews itself for us.
The birds all chirp love notes
As the soft grass of your stubble
Brushes against my cheek.
Winter days are never bleak.
We kiss between coffee sips,
And let our breath crystallise in the cold.
As we stick our tongues out like children,
The snowflakes dance on our tongues.
When the land is frozen to a fever pitch,
We intertwine by the fire place and watch
a flame that does not burn,
But lights my soul all the same.
The autumn sun belongs to us,
Bathing us in auburn as
We press fallen petals
Into each others cheeks,
Paint them with the blush of decay.
While the world falls asleep
I trail soft kisses in a figure-eight
As If my lips hold infinity.
We come alive in summer,
Each stroke of a butterfly’s wing
Sends a gentle breeze through your curls.
I finger each strand, hold them like
They’re the twine that bonds us.
When the burn reaches our skin
We plunge into the pool together-
Submerged at odd angles
Like mantises mid-leap,
Cocooned together in water.
I have loved you in all seasons.
Each one more than the last.
If it swallows us whole,
Let us be two cherry pits
Rattling in love’s stomach.
Tossed about by life’s storms and screams
But tethered by our unbreakable stem.
Pinned Wings
I tried to practice the art of letting go,
To let a breeze pass through my palm-
But everyone is stuck to me like
A butterfly to a finger.
Too precious to not let linger.
Their mottled wings
Let light into my soul,
Like two pointy kaleidoscopes,
Showing me shapes and colours
That bear the name of joy.
They speak in laughter,
Two antennas pointed to the sun,
As if it’s glow ignites them,
A sunlight that never reaches my lips.
So I must siphon it from others.
I keep them close,
As if I can capture their happiness in a jar.
No longer comfy on petal soft flesh,
They thrash against the glass
And the gloom of my shadow.
I will not let them go,
I will starve them of air,
So I can pin their wings
In the shape of a smile
And watch them forever.
But when they pass
The misery always returns,
So with my arched finger
I wait amidst the flowers
For another poor thing to land.
Savannah Smyth is a 22-year-old poet from Northern Ireland. Her work was published in the Nocturne Ash Dark Poetry anthology and was given an honorable mention in a competition by The Dark Poets Club.
