The Bitterwine Oath by Hannah West

Author:Hannah West [Hannah West]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE OTHER SIDE OF SHADE

Levi Langford

Hiding with her in the checkered shade

of Miss Maggie’s garden trellis, I see

only the thrumming blood-orange of life:

tomatoes clinging fat and worry-free to their sturdy towers,

her soft-seeming sundress, the strawberry cobbler

bubbling with heat on her paper plate.

This is the happy kind of going-away party.

Honeycomb hair gloating over one shoulder,

she asks me if there’s anything I regret—

no mechanical “he-would-be-proud” or “it-will-get-easier.”

Eyes outspoken as a summer storm,

sweat-slicked August freckles forgetting

that a cold day ever passed, she waits for my answer.

Up close, she is a mosaic of idiosyncrasies,

no mere stranger, no mere silhouette,

and her every inch and breath calls to my will to survive.

I meet her summer lips, and renounce Death

—his and mine—whether mine’s yet to come

or has already. Until now, I was phantom-thin,

more lost than him, even though I’d purged the wrinkles

from my Oxford and rehearsed a smile.

His was the other kind of going-away party.

I hope it’s not pity inspiring her to be

so generous with her blood-orange kiss,

our unpremeditated kiss,

my why-have-I-never-done-this kiss.

Tucked away in the quilted grid of garden light,

I remember everything alive needs darkness to thrive.

I see the other side of shade.

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