Belonging
Atoosa Grey
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2017 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Tom Howard, Poetry
When pomegranate seeds spill
from your shallow ivory pockets
onto the rubber playground
where this city expands
in your palm; or before
the hour when you
run through the orange light
as it bends like a whale,
the wind goes wherever
you go, your dress full of dirt,
and never has mud been honeyed
like this, at the end of the day the way
your mouth becomes a bird's,
and endless peels of apples, melons,
kiwi lead to mother's hands,
as you hang onto her bracelets,
turn her rings clockwise,
creased in the nest of her dress.
When orange disappears,
you sleep where she sleeps,
the light from the closet
whitening your dark bodies.
She sleeps not a moment more than you,
every inch of absence long.
This poem first appeared online in Eunoia Review and was included in the chapbook, Black Hollyhock, published by Finishing Line Press (2015).
