17. Mar. Written Post 2008
You thought we forgot, didn’t you? April fools!
“There’s Sunshine in my Sink” by Molly Schenker, Central High School, Class of 2008
“Savage”
I remember staring into it,
its leaves filtering light
blue and ragged from above.
It smelled of cherry smoke,
the inexplicable green of eyes,
brooding of camel legs, eye lashes.
I did not touch, for fear
for awe, intricate as a humming bird
almost as jittery, each feather
of lead. Its savage separated me
from my own fingerprints
finger tips, my lips in the corner.
I caught a glimpse.
I have never seen a poem as lovely
on its haunches since it. And
everything I do, everything I write
is in hopes to return to that snarling
quail: mother.
- Sean Zhuraw, High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Class of 2008
“names on the sidewalk”
i felt a pang as i glanced at all the names on the sidewalk.
jamie. sarah. michael. evan. JP.
so many names, so many lives.
so many stories.
i jumped as the sound of the mixer pulled me from my thoughts.
so many stories…
soon to be erased by concrete and rich constituents and low property values
- Deja LeAnn, Newark High School, Class of 2008 “Bold Nostalgia”
And you’re still scared of coffins
Where our young friend, she lied
Your sad horseshoe eyelids
Your mother she cried
And the nights we remember,
Though now those are few,
With our damp cheeks we waited
To speak with you
All the sirens, they whistled
I held your body near mine
You told me you loved me
I said, “You’ll be fine.”
I stood there alone
My chucks kicked the curb
I can’t forget how you smiled
My life now a blur
Now I don’t know where home is
I’ve been lost for six days
My good friends, they told me
We’d get over this phase
But my best friend stayed silent
All through the night
With rocking-chair patience
Like rain while it’s bright
- Adam Kipfer, Emerson College, Class of 2011
“Inching”
If i could save you, i’d take you away and show you, we’re all meant, for nothing and anything. Each day grows an old man older. Takes away another memory and i’ll tell you something else, i don’t care and i know they don’t care. No one is going to save a soul and that’s just cause we’re all little emotional balls, running around in chaos, looking for another turning point, but it all comes back to home.
- Mariam Saleh, MA
“Sonsabitches,”
my mothers mother would mutter
and the nails of my father’s
rough tan hand would sting,
sunk deep into my mother’s soft palm.
It was an infamous phrase Nelly mostly used
in the direction of hundreds of bingo operators. I can’t imagine my father’s mother
ever swore in in his presence:
Her name was Ruth. I called her Mim.
She would have stolen me anything
I wanted from Drug Emporium.
We walked there when she baby-sat me,
in between biscuit baking and dancing
to Michael Jackson videos on the television.
I wanted a soft bunny with a jean jacket.
She slipped it into her purse. Later, I applied lipstick to Bunny’s small mouth.
When it didn’t come off,
I cried and cried and cried.
When Harry brought Jeane home to meet
his mother I never heard him call Mom,
Ruth cried. With happiness at seeing my
father’s arm around my mother’s small shoulders.
In Ruth, Jeane found another mother.
I’ve wondered about their relationship for years. My mother gave me the sunflowers in my eyes.
Nelly gave Jeane her panic attacks.
My mother ran into her mother’s doctor in a hospital one night. “You may not remember me, but you gave my mother, Nelly Hugues, medication.” “Medication? Oh, I remember you, but I never gave Nelly meds. Those were sugar pills.” Ruth gave everyone presents from Jomar.
“Oh, yeah, I really thought you’d like this,”
with a large ceramic turtle in her hands. My mother teaches second grade
and hugs everyone.
My father has never told me he loves me,
but after my first teenage relationship
went down the drain, we made a mess
of pots and pans on the kitchen floor,
banging on them and giggling. Ruth was unable to watch me
by the time I reached big kid school
and my mother followed me there,
from our preschool to third grade, then second.
My father visited Ruth in the nursing home
every Wednesday. She watched Highlander.
Soon, she didn’t know his name. When I think back as far as I can,
my first memory is in a room
in the back of my mother’s parents’ apartment.
There is a trunk filled with odds and ends.
I have selected a tiny turtle figurine.
It is smooth and we have fallen in love.
Grandmom Nelly says I can have it.
He is warm from hiding in the cave of my palm.
Nelly and Ruth both died before
I was old enough to ask them
the questions I ask my parents today,
hoping for a glimmer of
grandmother-voice to peak through.
I’m not sure who’s responsible
for taking away old people
from the realm of the living,
but precedent requires
I refer to them as
“Sonsabitches.”
- Rachel Milligan, Community College of Philadelphia, Class of 2011
