Pyrus Pyrifolia
BY JESSIE LI
Honorable Mention for the 2012 Adroit Prize for Poetry
Judge: Chloe Honum
remember the pears
yellowing sleeves speckled and
smudged by emerald
rough soles of bamboo
your calloused feet like leather
glassy ground aching
weeds crusted by ice
snow swooning like first lovers
rhythm unsteady
you were a fallen
leaf a wooden bench idling
against the spring brush
i still remember
later your ashes their ghost
steps flurrying lost
Jessie Li attends Davidson College as a Belk Scholar and a Patricia Cornwell Scholar for Creative Writing. She is a member of the Philanthropic Literary Society and the president of Changing Minds, a campus group raising awareness on mental illness. She was previously the recipient of a National Scholastic Writing Portfolio Silver Medal. She enjoys running, reading, and playing piano in her spare time.