Poem made from light
BY EMILY ZHANG
Richard Montgomery High School, ’16
2016 Adroit Prize for Poetry: Editors’ List
Liv and I go swimming and she
tells me about her dreams.
In them she holds a candle
to a forest. In them there are
no shadows, only light cast
clear and quick the way boats
throw fishing lines to the ocean.
I ask her about the wolves.
She doesn’t see them, or maybe
there aren’t any. The way depth
is only depth if you stretch
your eyes. Maybe she’s not
in a forest. Maybe she’s underwater
where the air presses against her.
I ask her about the fire. She says
she holds the candle until
it’s a part of her hand, the flame
burning quiet, nesting out an
opening where her body begins.
Sometimes the candle burns
until everything is hollow, until
there’s no difference between
a house drenched in gasoline
and the small of a back and the crest
of the water’s surface.
Poem made from stones
BY EMILY ZHANG
Richard Montgomery High School, ’16
2016 Adroit Prize for Poetry: Editors’ List
When I dream of being a fish
everything is shiny. When Liv
and I visit the market all I see
are rows and rows of versions
of me. The anatomy of living
is so different, the word living
skinned so pink it swarms
the senses. I tell her this is all
some sort of reincarnation
and I believe it. I believe it
when we’re back with loose coins
rattling like bees in our pockets.
I believe it when we’re two states
over and throwing up
on street curbs, the champagne
flutes still in our hands, still
brimming over. Liv. There are many
ways to drown and none
of them begin like this.
