1 poem

by sophia fangman

Nicolet High School

gold and silver

she used to believe it was possible to find an entire forest in someone’s palm.
her grandfather told her that those scars of what          we hold       too tight
would stand and become each proud branch of the oaks, maples, pines.
that the scars of what        holds us        too tight
are etched onto our bones;
etched into places where excessive love has cracked our insides.
heartache shines silver, he said, but is heard in whispers:
remember that.

her delicate bones glowed golden; but daggers are silver.
when her ribs        slip and puncture        a heart,
they leave a glowing bone-shaped hole.

her grandfather told her that the bend of her elbow is what makes her a        woman;
woman       is hewn from the ore of planets;
a woman's veins, scars of what generations of mothers and grandmothers have left behind:
remember that.

but when she allowed this boy to feel her warm glow,
the bones of her elbow fused together into a stiff, unyielding line.
when he whispered the planets’ names into her neck,
she didn’t hear her own
he convinced her that her veins were too faint to be scars.
                               and

as she became a woman in this boy’s eyes,
her elbow snapped in half,        shattered.
she grated those golden bones into fragments of the desolation of planets.
daggers are silver
and these bones became silver.
silver shards of grated bone         silver shards of grated girl         silver shards of grated woman