We run until it hurts too much to take in another breath My breath is a thin jet of smoke, in the cold winter morning Drifting from my lips The sound of our footsteps beating the hard-packed snow is inviting And then, all at once, we all fall We fold into one another Every joint in our bodies collapsing Like a folding chair, My knees, my waist, my elbows, until I’m down Till my ankles are her ankles And her calf is mine And we laugh A pile of marionettes, Waiting for strings to be pulled up again, In a happy dance Astrid May Steiner-Manning, 12St. Paul, Minnesota
Poetry-Friends-and-Family
Inhaling the Scent of the Wind
The scent of apples whispers through the air Reminding me of our lazy days in the orchard Lying in a bed of violet morning glories Inhaling the scent of the wind Remember the day we held a butterfly funeral in grandma’s backyard? You found it in the dirt beneath the bougainvillea bush With only one fiery wing That fluttered into silence We talked about everything and nothing By flashlight under pink and purple sheets Biscuit asleep between us, tail curled in comfort You stopped coming around When you turned thirteen The two years between us Suddenly yawned into a black abyss You became a teenager More interested in texting than watching hummingbirds fly Boy talk, than watching the water dance in the fountain And now when we meet We are strangers Sydney Pardo, 13Irvine, California
The Sea Voyage
I saw a dolphin swim up to our ship, Not gray or blue but green, Just beyond the sea lions lying on the rocky beds That protect the docks from the wrath of the ocean. But today it is still, Our boat making ripples in the dark blue water, Fresh air washing my face, Waking me out of my morning slump. “Over there! Over there! The dolphins are jumping!” The ghost of my grandpa beside me, Like back on his old boat, His spirit still living With the mud and the fish smell, And the sunlight hitting the water and the swaying deck, And the dark brown leathery pelicans Flying low over the horizon. Theo Taplitz, 10Los Angeles, California
