Untitled Poem

Summer,

Red in bloom.

Grandmother makes

Something sweet

That lights my memory.

Raspberry Jam,

So sweet it hurts your teeth.

So good you can't resist.

Light is filtered

Through marbles

and antiquities

from years past

loved ones' marks.

Autumn,

Red dying out.

Apples fall and

Apples are picked.

Wasps buzz at your feet.

In the warm kitchen

cinnamon sticks in the air.

Apple crisp

Lies in the oven,

Waiting to be served.

My cousins are outside,

And chatter drifts in and

out as the warm light

of October seeps through

The window in my kitchen.

Winter is coming.

-Izzy Bateman

Consume

My teeth ache to bite.

They catch on the soft curtain

of my lips,

so eager to feast

they do not bother to taste,

to savor.

No piece of them is missing,

there is not hole to be filled,

and yet.

I run my tongue across them,

to soothe, 

to comfort.

But what can comfort

something made only 

to pulverize,

to make small

and easy to stomach?

Bone rising from flesh,

a reversal.

Though they are white, 

they are not pure.

Consumption stains them,

blood and marrow,

sinews they wish to lay bare.

I am not hungry,

but my mouth is,

and it is the piece of me

that speaks.

-Aspen Hickman