Sharp and Sour

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by Lucy Narva

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sharp and sour

 

that is what loss tastes like

when it lolls across the

faded cobble steps, figure

of the mundane, probably

coked up, fingers splayed, palms

still open to the world.

 

three days of rain have tried

to scrape the canvas clean—

the sediments drip down each

edge, pool at the bottom,

trickle, seemingly away,

into the soil and its inhabitants.

 

then the red curls and coils upward,

turning sun-facing leaves

inward, drying them from

their veins to their skin, until

they hurl themselves into the mud,

and the cycle restarts.

 

we try to turn away,

but as our eyes find other

sights, our own entrails

are ripped out, stapled to the

trunks, tied around the roots, draped

from branch to branch.

 

so, instead, they say to pray.

but what does a prayer do?

 

i pray anyway, and some patches dissolve—

i pray anyway, and others seep further in—

 

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Lucy Narva is a budding poet from Boston, Massachusetts. She likes unsweetened iced coffee, the smell of lilac flowers, and people who text with proper grammar. She is currently studying English at Barnard College of Columbia University, trying to balance required writing with desired writing, and, as Tim Kreider expertly wrote, grappling with “the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

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