Summer Poems July 2020

Dazzling smiles guide my wobbling limbs.
I sense the drug of fame kicking in.
These strangers have formed me into a world phenomenon.
The clothes,
shoes,
and lifestyle scream “Look at Me!”
My gown tingles like silk against my skin.
The fans tremble into a tizzy
when they see the wave I practiced for hours.
The sensation of importance
is embedded into every twist I create.
Sadly, I have to face reality.
My dress transforms back into a raggy blanket.
The screaming audience is only a CD in the background.
The idea of blending in felt
like a gift I could never accept soon enough.
Although now as I look back,
all I desire is to grasp that special appeal again.
The blinding difference that once sent
people running to me is a dream I want to follow.
But maybe chasing that desire
makes me miss what gifts I already possess?

The soft summer breeze
kisses my cheeks.
The blazing summer sun,
leaves its mark on me.
My skin has turned, from
an orange pale to a creamy brown.
This is my happy place.
Where,
I have to wear a life jacket everywhere.
Where I can lie outside all day long.
I jog over to big red.
Start to climb.
I reach the top
and marvel at the magnificent view.
The boats in the distance rocket past.
Our next-door neighbors are
going down their slide.
My uncle Ross and my dad below me,
yelling at me to jump into the water.
It is a fifteen-foot drop.
My head is queasy,
my legs quake,
my heart pounds.
I take a step, jump.
I feel like I’m flying, as I soar through the air.
Then I hit the water with a big smack.
As I plunge into the murky depths.
The darkness welcomes me.
Then starts to lift me back up.
My life jacket reaches the surface first,
then my head.
I gasp for air.
I open my eyes to my world.
I wish I could stay in this place.
Where the under-sea creatures live peacefully,
Where the water is green,
Where if you dive to deep,
You get seaweed in between your toes.
But like all dreams, I have to wake up.

Riley Ball is going into eighth grade at St. Patrick’s Catholic School in Rolla, Missouri. This year in her English class she was introduced to poetry.  Her poem My Happy Place, was based on her experiences at the Lake of the Ozarks where her family has vacationed since her dad was a baby.

I watch the crow, all sharp hooks and
Soft lines, circling lazily,
Like a blot of ink highlighted by the glow
Of the sun, writing in a language I’ll never
Decipher. I beg it to whisper its secrets
Into my ear, explaining how to be
Less stiff and square, the result of staying
Too grounded.

Paying the wind to carry me,
I flail through the air like the clumsiest
Of clouds, praying I don’t fall through
The paper-thin horizon that holds me
Afloat. The sun is delicious and I try
To devour it, glutting myself with
Its decadent glory until I fly
Too close.

Katie Li is a student from Seattle who edits for Polyphony and Kalopsia Lit. When she’s not reading or writing, she likes to dance, study business, and waste money on boba.

My father’s fingers swallow the wood
as they massage chunks of tomato
oozing bubbled blood into the skin
of unpeeled onions, crinkling
like the newspaper he buries his dark
nose into each morning, festooned
with little brown bindis. My father
does not know how to cook anything
save his own body—thick with lassi,
mother’s milk, fermented. Cow’s breast
blending with thighs of chicken, choked
with cardamom. Animals forget how to walk
when far from home. My father lifts spoon
to mouth and wraps lips around hot metal
marred by the taste of Indian blood. He kisses
the congeries of his memory. Little brown boy
on step stool, bare chest burnt by red sun.
Mother of no daughters grinding nutmeg
against stone, recipes against bone.

Divya Mehrish is a writer from New York. Her work has been longlisted at the UK Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition, and commended by the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award as well as the Scholastic Writing Awards, which named her recipient of five National Gold and Silver Medals. In 2019, she won the Arizona State Poetry Society Contest and the New York Browning Society Poetry Contest. Her work appears in or is forthcoming in PANK, Ricochet Review, Tulane Review, Polyphony Lit, The Battering Ram, The Ephimiliar Journal, Sandcutters, The Kitchen Poet, Fingerprints, Body Without Organs, and Amtrak’s magazine The National.

My father repeats his question.
“If I told you I wanted to be a woman,” he says, his words pressing into me like his fingers pressed around the kitchen counter edge. “What would you say?”
I know what he’s doing. His question is hypothetical. He is Before me, challenging me to stay in his time. He wants me to stay where people have definitions. Standing After me is Their time (Our time?) where definitions are decimated. No ashes remain.
I pick up a blade and slash twice. Once through Before and once through After. I toss the weapon aside.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I would say, okay. I would not fight you.”
He scoffs. I throw him a rope from where I stand, valleys on either side.
“I would love you.”
He doesn’t catch it. The valley grows wider.

Jaden Goldfain is a freshman pursuing a B.A. in Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She has a passion for writing to expose the things that try to hide, and can spend hours in a world of words.

This land has forgotten us. We
reveal ourselves in chipped tooth,
in yellowed counter, in fracture
& fever. This land has buried our
bodies in its soil, but it remembers
the taste of our blood, rains down
acid to dissolve our bones. The air
takes to our lungs like beryllium
to the tongue. This is not our home.
This is siren singing her song & this
is how we lose ourselves. The land
still remembers the howling of
our voices, thinks of us on windy
days. There is psalm hidden in
sudden tempest & we have never
stopped singing.

Elane Kim is a teenager who loves poetry, chemistry, and just about every kind of bread. She is very passionate about environmental issues, and her writing has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. She is very happy to meet you!