Maia

17

Sketches of Summer

I
We lie belly-down on the scratchy
grass, kick off flip flops
and worries, sip iced tea that tastes like
August. Words spill off our tongues and out of our
irises, strung along like a twisted vine
of Christmas tree lights, we untangle them
and watch them glow.
Leaves beneath us tickle our midriffs,
maybe that’s why we laugh with the wind,
lightly.
We inhale each other’s worries and exhale
comfort. We are symbiotic, exotic
like the sweet summer sun.

II
My body sinks into the fiery
sand, stretched out on the shore, sunny-side-up.
I soak up July and feel my skin scorch
as the wind plays cat’s cradle with my curls.
My hair tastes like potato chips, crunchy
with sea salt. The sun sprinkles freckles
on my cheeks and paints my skin pink.
Here time forgets its numbers and worries sink beneath the sand,
grains catch in my eyelashes and I almost don’t mind.

III
Polaroids stick together in the heat, just like
us, sweaty and smiling, walking quickly so the concrete
doesn’t burn the bottoms of our feet.
We worship melting popsicles and
guitar strings, evenings sweet as old friends on porch swings.
Bright nails pop boldly against white dresses and tan arms,
linked together in sweaty solidarity.
The hot summer air silences us.

Maia

17

Good Vibes

The cool metal countertop makes my thighs shiver
as we sit in this small in-between space by the kitchen.
We talk quickly for hours without pause, there is always something to say
when I’m with you.
We’ve been here since the sun disappeared
behind the basketball hoops, and if I look out the window I can see black
turn to indigo to blue, the daylight fading in.
The tea we came here to make has cooled beyond lukewarm, and I can’t figure out
why we stayed so long,
our legs swinging off the edge of the aluminum counter, our mouths opening
to spill our secrets. I see it in the way your head tilts
when you listen to me, the way your eyes
open wide when your feelings roll off my tongue, the way
you squeeze my hand as I ramble about something that probably won’t matter
by tomorrow, but it is tomorrow already,
or is it? I never know where tomorrow begins, but I know
that I want to stay here in our Eden for every tomorrow. I want to sit on this icy countertop until my legs freeze and my tongue tires. I can’t help but feel that something is tying me to this place, to
you—it must be good vibes, like you said.
We call it good vibes because we don’t know
what else to call it. It doesn’t have a name, but I think
it deserves one.
If it was mine to name, I’d call it
Summer.

Emily

16

Hawaiian Luau

As the faint tap of coconuts rattles in the distance
my eyes are electrified by the staggering flames
resting on hand-carved tiki posts.
Hawaiian men sway into the clear,
with sticky sweat
latched on their glowing tanned skin.
Spheres of fire twirl in the air
carefully landing in their skillful palms.
As floral shirt tourists
clap in astonishment,
iridescent grass skirts
wave through the gray smoke.
Hula dancers,
each bearing a delicate hibiscus flower
cupped behind their left ear,
pluck mango wood ukuleles
while undulating their bodies
to the soft beat of the music.
The hushed crash
of the neighboring beach’s waves
echos in the distance,
its tide’s pacific blue glistening
under the waning sun.
As the islanders disappear into the darkness
and the bright firelight fades
Into dust,
the steady rhythm of Aloha-Oe
dances in my mind.

Effie

16

Blue Deserts

There’s something wonderfully
bizarre about laying in the dark,
and watching life wash past
like ocean waves beating forward
in a steady march towards a
disappearing horizon line.
But sometimes, we all just
need to stop swimming with
our heads underneath the water,
to find out how beautiful it is
above the line and in the sky.
Lost sailors and pirate ships
know the language of the sea,
so their anchors are temporary,
stationed at rest from the
ruthless grip of the ocean swells.
Salty tears spray into the misty air,
like the water begging to breathe
life into its dark unknown abysses
with heavy hearts of sailors’ girls.
Blue deserts ebb their way onto
shores of empty minds and into
stories of shipwrecked children.

Meera

16

Quiet, the dog’s dreaming
__on the porch, glazed gold, lapsing in an idle breeze
__his old legs quiver silently, a phantom run, lifting his greying muzzle, a half-snarl
__the hazy, tuneless afternoon floating through a picnic-colored sky above,
__dripping by like lemonade, gone lukewarm in drowsy summer warmth
__and he dreams, sinks into his rustling thoughts
What’s he hunting, do you think?
__a vague memory—flash of forest, dusky thrill
__full, burning, churning adrenaline circling small pupils
__crouched beneath wordless bushes, black muzzle
__in a silent snarl, ears plastered down
__the prey flitting, depthless
Some very slow squirrels, probably
__beneath an arcane canopy, clapping, violent clouds
__a thick, coiled pounce, shifting of muscle,
__moments paralyzed, skinless hunger
__teeth
__the flood, bloody crush
Maybe a bird with clipped wings?
__--the laughter wakes him coldly, heart still
__thudding, now emptily, a forgotten metronome
__clouded eyes, muddy pools, he wonders vaguely
__ugly flies tickle his ears
__slow, snapping jaws, he cannot catch them
Oh look, he woke up. Did you have a nice hunt?
__his family laughs again, calm static, thoughtless
__standing, he shakes himself, shedding flakes of sleep
__phantom hunger, spying a bird, thin beak, pecking at the earth
__a vague memory thickens, pushes his steps, he aches
__tired crouch, unsure, thin muscles stretch
Silly dog, you’re too old to catch a real bird
__a shuddering giggle, the bird scatters by
__shrieks at him, mocking, splash of feathers
__the blue, glazed sky, playful sun, forgetting
__he feels empty, drowsy
__maybe another nap, then
Silly dog

Michelle

15

Summer

When July opens up like the crack of an egg, you hardly notice how quickly it slides into the bowl of August.
The hot summer haze is so bright like the thick of the yolk that it’s hard for you to realize that your legs won’t be that rich shimmering brown color in a few months
And that your hot pink tipped toes will be concealed behind a pair of thick gray woolen socks.
Regardless, you opt for the tanning lotion over the SPF and you keep your toenails bright and colorful—just to display a little piece of how the razor sharp blade of heat that we call summer is supposed to make you feel.
But no matter how hard you try, your sweat never seems to sparkle or make you look more dewy
And the chlorine from the pool adds a slight green tint to your blond highlights.
So it’s not your fault that you’ve never completely understood the whole appeal of this season.
Or is it?
Maybe you just like your eggs scrambled with a couple handfuls of cheese and a sprinkle of that first December snow
Rather than an overly crispy sunny side up that has spent far too many minutes sizzling on top of the greasy summer beach.
Besides, who likes to feel gooey warm eggs slide down their throat in the middle of August?
Especially on a particularly smoldering Monday morning.
At least I don’t,
That’s for sure.

Isabel

17

why cry?

it's fall, and in the school hallways
hundreds of familiar strangers look
past me, and push me to the side...
i miss my savior, summer
because every time,
she walked by my side
during those warm months
on the dirt path by the lake

my savior, summer
was with me upstate
where i smiled at everyone and
where the kids in their wooden bunks
slept fluttery-eyed
under unpolluted starry skies,
and summer, my savoir
slept always near my side

and sometimes, bent over textbooks
in my room where i can't see any stars
i wish that i could run away
but i remember summer, and i smile

because, summer, she introduced me
to a boy that told me not to run
but rather that life was a shiny blue lake
that should be rowed and swam
a boy, whose mint kisses
melt my worries into smiles

summer, she taught me only to cry
when saying goodbye
of course, sometimes i still cry
but my summer savior reassures me
that even in the cold months
under the dripping mascara
and under the winter coat
and under the pale skin
that the residual warmth of summer
lives as a summer sun in my soul

and in the crinkly-eyed smile of my best friend
and when i run my hand through
that summer boy's soft black hair
and in the petals of a pesky yellow wildflower
growing in the cracks of the pavement
and in the stars, even with the smog

Sasha

15

she takes the sun in her teeth and carries it with her...
like a blind on a yellow-glass window, the sunset descends, like
a bird flying south, she goes east
traversing glittering roads, overrun with
weeds that break through their roofs and unfurl their buds.
but all that glitters can never be gold, and
at dusk she is reaching her fortress

and she calls it her home.

and she tells me goodbye with
her heart on her sleeve and her
laugh in her eyes and her
heart on my sleeves,
and she holds me a moment
her face reaching over my shoulder
(she kisses it quickly, with care)
and entranced I am waving her off.

these scenes
(being of no explicable consequence)
I shed them: skinless on the cutting room floor, they rest
heedless of time, or
obsolescence

yet, to these fleeting instances
I owe my strange existence

and to her steady heart I owe
my life.

Edward

19

August Cantrip

Glimpse!

That lemon finch-
There's the reason we let the coneflower mass
and rough into a lavender bramble.
Always, the third week of August
(Far before the page dates summer's end)
the listening finch hears
October uncurl.
Some wildcard pitch
a grounder, down Saturn's baseline
sweeping sheer chill out to
Ender's Bay
urging on the shadows.
Heed!
The feeding finch preens
clouds, unseeding.

That first, bracing rinse
laves the sky blue bright
cleaning the night air, over and over.
Still!
The waiting finch calls
swift notes,
achingly sweet
clues to its betrothed,
Hear it!
Dropping seed husks to the ground
a breadcrumb path to winter.

Annika

15

Mind of a Hurricane

I see her sometimes,
Sitting in the back of the classroom, biting on her nails
Black nail lacquer chipped by the end of class
If she had even shown up at all
Feverish scribbles in a notebook
Hiding, escaping
Mind elsewhere
She's anywhere but here
The dark stains under her eyes all too much proof
I remember when there used to be a spirit in her eyes
Bright, lively, vibrant, in place of this grey
She was lovely, cheerful,
a lone sunflower in the rain
But her effervescence started to fade long ago
Days gone by, storms raged on,
She, too, began to vanish
what was her name?
I think it was Summer.
But as summer does, her petals wilted
stem withered
a victim of life's cold hands
gripped onto her soul,
her spirit.

Sasha

15

It is not in the nature of summer to allow for silence.
Though, no greater peace is known to me than the air in the wake of a storm,
born of a solstice wind.

The disposition of any constellation
is evident in the coming of lightning bugs:
swarming
in galaxies luminescent, and painting
an ode to their astral muses at dusk

You have shaken me to my core,
your gaze is the death of my sorrow.
Even at mention of meeting, I tremble,
Your presence: it stirs in my carpals
and rocks my athenosphere

I am a child, resting myself like a pool cue
in time's purlicue;
It holds my head as I spin through the black velvet carpets of space,
as I dance among nebulae, race
across my palpitating consciousness

It is not in the nature of summer to allow for silence.
In spite of this fact,
I do always find a resonance I will describe to be hollowing
weighty and whole in my aural shallows:
this I will call my great and inexorable symphony

Midnight's intangible chorus of light
Cruelly it bounds within reach of my eyes, envelops my fingers so sweetly:
this, my perpetual agony.
In truth I would want it no differently, dear
my fate is forever entwined in this opera ethereal

Though I abstain from the heat of the odious day,
as a nocturnal entity I am content in the splendor of summer, its liberty, green as I am
(born of an equinox breath)

Rona

15

i.
in May we ditched third-period Spanish on the first proper day spring could call its own,
and with Ben & Jerry’s dripping down our chins you said something stupid, something that felt like parentheses with nothing in between,
something like "the sky matches your eyes" or "I love you" or "there’s ice cream on your nose."
instead of replying, I handed a dollar and nickels to Sam with the cardboard Sharpie sign on the corner of 6th and Salmon.

ii.
final exams led to me sprawled behind a Volkswagen in the parking lot
the wind felt like rhododendrons adrift on the ocean, I remember:
plenty of quiet for the clanging.
at four-fifteen, you with your rusty squeaky bike, tasting like sweat and wintermint gum.
June with cliff swallows swooping above, gas exhaust biting at our lungs,
sun streaks kissing the tops of glass buildings where balding white collars spent nine to five:
all-American dull middle-aged corporate drones, we laughed and vowed never to let our bones drain, fingernails bled dry, for a white-post-fence split-level and a Golden Retriever.

we drank coffee without sugar + burned our tongues and you wrote too many letters that all ended the same: I love you I love you I love you I love you so much my ribcage is smashed in
and I can’t breathe, helpIloveyouI’mdrowning;

iii.
love should be tough and madness and snapped pinky toes at six a.m., I exhaled
the day after Independence when you folded inside bus 43 to Milwaukee and for four weeks
while you taught nine-year-olds lanyarding and which creek to find the best salamanders to stuff into the neighboring cabin’s sheets,
I could pretend you were a ghost underneath my eyelids//there’s something romantic about the dead//
the July heat felt like porcelain, I spent noons writing poetry not about you but instead
someone who would admit 5.6 liters of blood is all the human body’s got and in calculus there is a limit but only on Fridays. (if I squinted and caught my breath at the same time I could think this one was you)
(so I did)

iv.
August you came back with a sunburn and texts from Sofia-in-charge-of-the-horsie-girls,
every night after I tried to find tears but came up with only a hollowness because here’s what I kept under my jaw, a melody you don’t want:
maybe all we know is from magazines snuck from your dad’s bottom drawer and trashy movies about vampires and veins, love is painful but if I socked you in the face it wouldn’t be romantic.
back in June, we’d promised to go watch a film noir from ‘62 on the last day of vacation but
I went to Somerset Aquatics, pressed my knees against the chain-link fence, watched chubby boys splash their sisters, toddlers waddle with floaties, imagined that the air was of cloves and whiskey sour, but actually chlorine that stung my eyes.

Mikala

17

The Fall of Summer

My pupils are flooding with blue cuddles floating
painting my palms smeared now with soft green below.
A distant breeze shuffles all outer skin white,
while the leaves’ colors fight into view.

Red tackles love, work
time spent gazing into
Lustful eyes.

Green fades like money:
careful of its actions,
regretful with every boring purchase.

Yellow takes the sounds
the music and identities,
all unified by starry boisterous nights.

Time melts with the void here,
wandering after long shifts,
willingly wondering
Is this affair the Last?

Veronica

16

Defying the Sun:

July ends with a heat wave,
A week of watching the thick air shimmer over the pavement
And the lawns curl into a dry, brown snarl.
The sun is an angry, brooding thing.
It glowers down on our empty streets,
Bakes the earth into pale, dusty chunks.
Thick clouds of lazy gnats buzz against the stillness.
A few swimmers float listlessly in the lukewarm water of our local pool,
Too tired to do anything but breathe in the smell of chlorine.
The rest of us hide away inside,
Letting the air conditioning raise goose bumps on our bare skin.
But in the evenings, we sit on our porches.
We defiantly steal moments between the heat and mosquitos.
The citronella-scented breeze carries laughing voices like rain.
A week later, when I am sitting on my front steps,
The first roll of thunder rumbles dimly over the hills.
The concrete is burning under my bare feet
And I’m frozen with a bottle of nail polish in my hands,
Half of my toes painted cherry-popsicle red.
Two boys perched on rickety blue bicycles stop in the street.
One tilts his head to the side, listening.
We are all listening.
The thunder comes again, faint, but unmistakable.
“I am coming,” it promises, “I am coming.”
The boys on the street throw their heads back and laugh.
They peddle home whooping and shouting,
And I return to painting my nails in careful strokes.
We have endured, survived the sizzling, sweltering days.
We are triumphant.

Cira

15

Beautiful Summer Night:

You were my beautiful summer night
My 12 a.m. summer night hello
And my 4 a.m. summer night goodbye

You were the small taste of freedom
I only got on our summer nights

You were the touch of a sweet breeze
I only got to feel on our summer nights

You were the bright light of the moon
I only got to see on our summer nights

You were my free
Sweet
Bright
Beautiful summer night

But like all nights end,
We said our goodbyes
The difference now-
You are no longer mine

Aubrey

17

The Summer the City Drown

I willed the city to drown in the rain

for no real reason other than the pure fact of wanting to feel it.
wanting to drink the sky's divine offering as entirely as the earth has for all of time.
the sky offers, the earth drinks.
the ideal exchange.

I want to feel that.

which is not to say that I am empty,
which is not to say that I am full
- though perhaps full of longing
for an exchange as equal and fulfilling as the offering & drinking of the rain.

tis a strange event
to feel utterly
singular
where you once felt immensely
plural.

which is not to say that I am alone,
but to say that the past has run away with the future
and quite possibly left me to loneliness.

does one say goodbye before flight
if they are unsure they are fleeing?

there were no farewells.
only the soft hum of
all our old, tired words
resting in a graveyard of antiquated
conversations.

here I am
lying in a mess of sheets
thinking of all that's been lost in this world.
white heat saturating the air
but the summer symphonies
of cicadas still perform for the night.
late July
has the season turned stale
or possibly too ripe for ingesting.
when, I wonder, do things become truly unbearable?

I want not to be stuck with clouds
of the past hanging over me
nor with winds of the future swirling
around me.
to be present.
to drink like the earth.
to offer like the sky
the ideal exchange.

I willed the city to drown in the rain.

Doria

16

Summer: A short ride

Summer is the sweet cream
Luxury in your stance
Lather in your lotion
And love in your hands
I am stable, yet I have journeyed away
To a sun-soaked existence
Of low stakes and high risk
Waiting for what will be
For summer is a short ride
Where even the darkness has light
Within its crevices
Gold shimmers down with promise and strength
I open my palms
Hold the warmth in my lungs
As the stars melt into the pavement
And the tunnel disappears behind me
Structures grow like school children
Giggling and rising above
Time unravels
Until Mr. Fahrenheit and I meet once more

Anneka

15

Death Like Lemonade At The End Of The World

i.

The last summer at the end of the world is the year of locust suntans and God, she hates it, picks their filmy wingspans sticky-twitching off coconut caramel calves. They’re everywhere, that summer, a plague from out East
where they already knew the world was ending. She swallows them every time she opens her mouth so she drowns them in vats of sticky sweet summer lemonade. In baby pink, lots of strawberry syrup, and here's how they taste: like epidemics and planetfall, like cookie cutter ice cubes sucked through a curly straw. Icky tang of the end of the world.

Outside, her neighbours are making bomb shelters out of cardboard castles.
They’re clipping garden hedges with end-of-the-world machetes.
Her neighbours are carving deep furrows in the earth. And she, watching, sips her lemonade. Even with the bugs it’s still pink. It tastes like a thousand things she doesn't understand.

ii.

That was the summer the sky turned red, and then black. And for all of August lightning crackled promiscuously on the horizon. Was it only last month she read gossip magazines, snuck boys into girl guide tents? Summer camp, a novelty getting old. The thing to have now is a good rifle, a gas mask, or a can of pork ’n’ beans. Beware the nosy neighbour. Beware the ailing heart. It is time to start thinking about what you want to leave behind.

iii.

If you listen closely, on some nights, you can hear the sound of armageddon. It comes like a church choir or the cracking of a whip. It sounds like the beat of a thousand drums. Also, angels. It sounds like the roar of a millennium of breath.

Heres what it’s like at the end of the world: Cup your fist, curl up in dirt, and linger. Stand under a doorway and maybe then you’ll be safe.
I could explain in terms of curly straws and pink lemonade. I could appeal to your sweet tooth candy cane heart. But everyone knows the best way to talk about the end of the world is what you talk about when you talk about dust. About how to step out of your body with a howl like a roar. How to cut your skin loose
and gleaming like the coils of a snake. And how it is only then that you know
you’re no longer what you had been. That you’ve been swallowed whole.

iv.

One Sunday, the last week before September, all of the trees in the world catch fire. 

Mary Renee

15

Hot and muggy season's wind;
burning sand,
cricket's din.
Shooting stars ignite the sky;
soaring clouds,
fireflies.
Years, a mind, that have advanced;
I cannot close
my thoughts a-trance;
Of that charming callow realm which brinks upon illusion's helm.

Sarah

14

“Look on the bright side!”
That’s what my mom says as I miserably look on.
“At least your friends can sign it, and summer can still be fun.”
Of course that doesn’t make it better, just makes it that more real.
Nothing good can come of this; I swear, it’s really true.
No pool for me, no nice cold showers. No water rides to slide.
I can’t even ride the rollercoasters with my friends like we planned to do.
No sand, no surf, no beach, no whoosing waves to ride.
It itches really badly, and doesn’t dry so fast.
I can’t wait to get this off. Man, I really hate this cast.

Three weeks later it’s finally gone.
The buzz buzz buzzing of the cast saw is all I remember.
It’s still itchy, and I still can’t move. It still hurts, too.
And as I take a shower, my skin begins to flake,
Like sand shaken off a towel in the wind.
Little red bumps appear on my arm, but my doctor says it’s fine.
I kind of miss the comfort; the security it gave.
But still I’m glad it’s off, with school a week away.
It leaves me time to go to the beach, and waste away my day.