April for Old Things
April showers mean more is coming, clouds
of clover and lavender, grass flat beneath new bodies.
That smell of dust, always dust, floating
over musk of dew on unwashed fleece,
familiar as an old winter blanket
curled up at the foot of the bed; faithful dog.
It is spring and I am thinking of wrinkling
leaves and blank pages. Season for strawberries,
rhubarb, artichoke of my heart--but not you, not
yet. Come home from pasture, your green meadow
limbs, into our kitchen, saffron and sweat
scenting your sticky neck. Come
in from the hurts you have not yet found:
ones you’ll collect like butterflies, peel
off your raw knees and pin with patterned
Band-Aids. Oh lamb, your shins unnicked
with shears, come in. There are greater horrors
than summer storms and I have only my arms.
Miranda Sun is twenty years old. An alumna of the NYS Summer Young Writers Institute and the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, her work has been nationally recognized by the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, as well as nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Recent publications include Body Without Organs, Lammergeier, Red Queen, and more. She is a former editorial assistant for Ninth Letter Online. You can find her procrastinating on Twitter or roaming the streets of Chicago in search of bubble tea.