Nyah Rain Palmer

Grade: 9

North Royalton High School

Instructor: Stacie Leatherman

Epilogue

Poetry

Epilogue

this summer it was hot. the sky was sticky and the sun was hungry, unsatisfied. we were sat folding dandelions and ripping the grass from its roots; digging our fingernails in the dirt. it smelled like apple blossoms and it tasted like growing up.

my mother came with her shadow like a hawk overhead, guiding me into gentle
arms when my body drooped like a wilting flower. it was eighty-three degrees but i leaned into her warmth anyway, tucked my face into her chest and closed my eyes; i knew the way home without looking.

she carries me up the front steps - i focus on the rhythm of her footfalls - and lowers me onto the living room couch like she has a hundred times before. kisses me on the forehead, like she has a hundred times before.

i don't remember much else before i fell into sleep, but i remember that she did not move the flower crown from my head or clean the dirt from my hands, and i am grateful. i don't remember much, but i am grateful.

this summer i napped with grass stains on my knees, and when i woke i had no shadow. it smelled like morning dew and it tasted like the end of a season.

i don't remember much, but i remember listening to the sound of your voice and my mother's as i slept, and i remembered it still as i woke.

barefoot, i passed into death.

Poem for Feeling Too Much

Poetry

Poem for Feeling Too Much

i am gaping i am cavernous i am full of light / i am an endless sky and a bottomless pit / i am sunrise and sunset the beginning and the end / i am ragged and raw as a new wound / live wire nerves and well oiled heart / i can feel you / i am sitting legs swinging on the moon and i can feel you / i am sitting knees touching on a park bench and i can feel you / can you feel me too?