And I wrote this

Iris Cai, United States

because the waterlogged branches bent in

cupid’s bows, swayed all winter

over the trickling silver stream that was

not silver but greenish with ivy

and mothwing, and now the red-ringed frogs

light between the leaves—not red, more

burnt copper from that California sunset

peeking through a little girl’s fingers

because she has not yet learned to catch

time when it falls through her like a winter

storm, the kind starting and stopping

without notice, flattening into overgrowth

beneath her side porch—yes, the porch

that’s really a balcony—which she watches

inside the bedroom window, holographic

stars hanging from her ceiling, the house

which has no meaning because little girls grow

into poets too quickly, and then only write

about nature to save the yearworn pictures

they love but cannot remember.

Iris Cai is a junior from the SF Bay Area. Her poetry has been recognized by YoungArts, Poetry Society of America, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and is published in or forthcoming from On the Seawall, Neologism Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. An alumna of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, she is also co-founder and editor-in-chief of Eucalyptus Lit.