Sofia Dewey

Grade: 12

Hathaway Brown School

Instructor: Elizabeth Armstrong

glory to the earth, glory to the people; words of blood and love

Poetry

glory to the earth, glory to the people; words of blood and love

Kept land
Mine and yours —
Sonya, it's ours.
Kept land and I want to buy a gun for my children and my lover
Hiding army reserves (it is one man) in my bunker (our home)
Four hours from where everyone knows us.
I feel it in my extremities: this fear.
(I want a gun for my children and my lover)
What the earth must feel when the sea is away for too long
(the moon calls it back and sorrytorushoutihaveplacestobeicantstayanylonger)
Maybe the universe is vengeful and I was mean when I was eleven,
and now my soul is sore from apologizing.
I never asked for it but now I am keeping the land.
Mine and yours,
Ours.
My kneecaps and forearms are shivering like wet dogs in the rain,
too proud to come inside
because it is not warm anymore and I thought this wouldn't last another winter.
Keep our land like hope,
Except the latter perches on my eyelids and
Mistakenly digs into them.
She isn't eleven anymore,
someone calls from Up There. Leave it.
And then my eyes are sore like my soul but this time I can see it: purple and dark blue.
Like the sea when it returns: different, but not enough to dissolve the salt.
I think I might have been designed to survive something else: I am still breathing,
though.
You can't buy a gun for your children and your lover
Because then I will never see anything again. I will let the bird dig into my bones and
maybe the angry confusion in my fingertips will seep out instead of the other thing.
And then who will keep our land?
Mine and yours — keep the rain and the blood,
Tell the army reserve (one man) I said hello, please. He looks thin.