i can't believe i am doing this. but a amy scott and i were talking about bravery. these are a couple of my poems.

A First Step Towards Loss
The first time I know summer

My parents tell me to get back in bed. I am six. I stand at the blinds without moving slats:
watch neighborhood kids run cat-footed in fields and dusk. Sun setting silhouettes
christened in purple shadow and wet, wet, wet, sprinklers click on lawns.
orange sky yawns—slow as counting stars. Elephant light through lazy white drapes,
darkness is coming, first firefly night.


(this is the one i wrote that day that i didn't go to class)



Heirloom

I nearly fused the gold band to my middle finger.
When I spilled the chemicals.
There was a moment of panic,
Then a sting of courage
When I saw the tender white
Ring of puffy skin underneath.