"After That Last Golden Summer" by Sirjana Kauri

pages fluttering back and forth:

cleaved fairy wings, cracked down the spine

when i was eleven and living for the sweet

burst of albany peaches in my uncle’s backyard.

to become a woman was to swallow

that childhood, push it down and make space

for the weight of my mother’s resentment

for her lost job, hatred for her mother-in-law,

leftover anger from arguing with my father.

in her image, i drew a crack down my chest

to let out my smaller self, with her magic wandmonkey bars. soft glow of swingset evenings overcascade view. sucking on bitter peach pits,the aftertaste of childhood. and when fall came,

i draped my mother’s old overcoat on my shoulders:

all her grief settling over me.

Sirjana Kaur is an Indian-American writer from Redmond, Washington. A 2024 National Student Poets Program Semifinalist, her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Eunoia Review, and Hot Pot Magazine. She's a lover of crosswords, cappuccinos, and the em dash.