Poetry

Mel DiGiacomo

By

Olivia Vande Woude

It Becomes What It Becomes

Serpents of silver

Cling to her neck

In succession

From smallest to largest.

At the begging of her chest,

Lies a pendant

Blue-green piece,

Space for dancing dreams.

Never sedentary

Light attempts to rest

spindly fingers on the geode.

Other chains

go unnoticed into

nude and vulnerable oceans

Weathered flaps of skin,

An old sail.

Veins and wrinkles

well acquainted with the Sun

roll unabashedly

Withering into the

Tea soaked canvas.

Dependent upper lip perches

on its corresponding lower ensemble

Of saffron pigments—

Chapped and cracked

A layer of dead skin

Yet to exfoliate.

White spinnaker hairs

Cut above ears

Cavernous sounds, erupting from the interior.

Laughter, escaping without a trace.

Mud dipped toes cling

happily to the ground

No restraint nor imprisonment

It becomes what it becomes.

Metal Tufted

Twin fawns were birthed last

week on Route 1A after

the mother succumbed

to gashes and scratches,

contusions and gashed resolutions,

consequences of escaping the forest

north of Winkumpaugh Road.

At 3 PM the doe emerged,

metal tufts

with a wounded breast

to bid farewell to her fawns,

rust colored and orphaned.

Motorists enrobed the newborns,

placed them in bassinets of ferns,

helped them suckle

from neighbors’ borrowed pacifiers.

Wobbling into woods,

she’d ensured their safety

retreating to beds of bloodroot.

She’d gone too far

and became too far gone

She got to live

before the living stopped.

Olivia Vande Woude

Olivia Vande Woude is a freshman at the College of William and Mary. She has been writing stories for most of her life, and has recently focused her attention on writing poetry. She has attended the New England Young Writers Conference, the UVA Young Writers Workshop, and was selected to read her work at the Virginia Festival of the Book. Her work has been featured in Literary Orphans, Oddball Magazine, The Legendary Magazine, Two Cities Review, The Cadaverine Magazine, Stepping Stones Magazine, Poetry Space UK, Canvas literary magazine, and other publications. Olivia has interned at Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center, where she was co-editor of the Crossroads Anthology. She is now on staff at the College of William and Mary’s Gallery Literary Magazine.