Back to Issue Eight.

Elegy Broadcast from the Top of a Radio Tower

BY EMILY KNOTT

I once saw someone break
open like a question—
a girl with light under her skin,
her children gathered like rivers
behind a dam
in a house with no windows.
I remember only the girl’s wedding,
the comet tail of her gown
held in the children’s hands
like so much light,
her potential flung to a universe unfolding
so that all anyone could see
was the glowing map of her veins.

Emily Knott is a freshman at Princeton University who recently graduated from the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. Her writing has received national recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the National YoungArts Foundation.