• The Color Green

    The Color Green
    eomma shapes my ink stained 
    bangs with the same orange 
    utility scissors she uses to 
    cut off scratchy tags with hands 
    that used to be pale & translucent 
    like cooked onion, potato starch, 
    wheat flour. her wrists are a recipe:
    sunspots, angry olive oil burns, ½ 
    cup oyster sauce for a little flavor. 
    the scissors slip so I go to school 
    with a jagged fringe but at least 
    my shirt doesn’t itch. 
    eomma feeds me a perilla leaf 
    wrap by the window. the leaves 
    we pick from the backyard, 
    feed with hose water & 
    forehead sweat & drops of 
    sun. eomma tells me to hurry 
    up & swallow, to stomach the 
    chlorophyll, taste the color green 
    & it goes down like cooked onion, 
    like potato starch, like wheat 
    flour & olive oil. 


    helium star
    cousin carried your picture
    at the funeral on a tuesday
    night before a big math exam.
    you looked different in a frame.
    you told me you liked the sky
    better than the sea last time we 
    spoke. you bought me a balloon & 
    I lost it to the clouds. can you see 
    it now? in retrospect I wish I’d 
    asked more questions. there’s too 
    much I don’t know about you so tell 
    me your favorite color and I’ll 
    dye the sky for you. tell me what 
    songs you like and I’ll teach thunder
    to sing & lightning to dance. tell me 
    when you have time. we were 
    twin stars blinking back 
    tears, ageless relative to the earth,
    moving so fast that were one
    & I wish I’d held you closer
    so that death himself would have
    had trouble prying your form 
    from my hands but I’ve always 
    had a habit of letting go of balloons. 


    Roots
    my great-grandparents were pot makers 
    who sculpted legacies with flesh, clay & bone.
    they coaxed flowers out of cactuses 
    & raised saplings in sand. I don’t know 
    their names and they never knew mine.
    when dad tells me to never forget 
    my roots I never know what to think. but
    I know my great-grandparents never died
    because the Earth would have died with them.
    they never died because everything I know about them
    comes from the living & maybe I have great-grandpa’s
    eyes, his hands, his conviction & maybe I have 
    great-grandma’s ears, her tongue, her spirit and soul
    & maybe I was raised in sand. when we meet again 
    somewhere where the sky never ends—
    there, I will tell them my name.


    How To Cook Maine Lobster
    I saw her before he did. lady in white dress, blushing
    red. mom told her to find a good man so she did
    what she could and fell headfirst. he was 
    older, wiser, & she was lucky she had a 
    choice. at the wedding mom shook the groom’s
    hand but at home she shook her head and sighed. 
    lady in a pink dress carries baby in blue.
    they shop for knives, pots & seafood. pass
    by the fish gallery & baby squeals. 
    lady reads instructions for dinner (because
    the good man & his good child need a good
    dinner, not like Wednesday night when she 
    forgot the roast in the oven, didn’t notice the 
    smoke or the alarms going off. that night 
    lady wiped mashed potatoes from the walls,
    baby food from the floor & lady was still lucky
    she had a choice): there is one humane
    way to kill a lobster. place it head first into
    seasoned water, turn up the heat slowly
    & it won’t notice the death filling its lungs.
    lobsters have no vocal chords so don’t worry.
    the hissing is just from the water. 
    lady in blue dress, blushing red lobster in 150° 
    water being boiled alive. her third-degree burns are
    third-world problems. mom asks if she’s happy.
    lady in blue hesitates, antennae twitching 
    but static follows. she wipes baby’s face
    & says yes. if the neighbors ask 
    the screaming was from the water. 
     
    Elane Kim

    Elane Kim
    Grade: 9

    Home School
    Walnut Creek, CA 94596

    Educator(s): Ann Kim

    Awards: Poetry
    Gold Medal, 2020

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