THE STEGER Prize For Poetry
Beautiful Barnes
by Aisha Wolo
(for B.N.W. and S.D.W.)
the sunday has passed
and the saturday is too far away
she wished sunday looked more like saturday so those naive days/months/
years in-between could be spent playing scrabble instead of dreaming about
how many times she could spell here name with the letters in the pretty bag
monday was wasted under the fingernails of a five-year-old who tried her
hardest to color in the lines and used only blue for the sky and strictly green
for the grass
tuesday was wasted as she misspelled 'idealist' because she was afraid of
going to fox mill elementary's spelling bee finals (she knew she was no
akeelah)- everyone was confused when she started 'idealist' with a'c' and
finished it with 'y-n-i-c'
wednesday was wasted when she cried herself to sleep because she knew the
only reason nyu wanted her was because of that box under 'race or ethnicity'
thursday was wasted when she put him first
friday was wasted when she spent the day worrying about whether or not
saturday would be warm enough to wear her new dress
stephanie- for the first time we were both virginia tech students
ben- for the first time you held the weight of a fallen empire on
your shoulders
for ben and stephanie
for living in your saturdays
for inviting us to live with you in your saturdays
for pushing us to invite ourselves to live in our saturdays
for using your sundays to push us to invite ourselves to live
in our Saturdays
it's funny how much a sudoku saturday can look like a scrabble sunday
although it's only scrabble if you prefer
because even though two decades seems like the calling card of
age-old wisdom and i've almost learned how to cook your pasta
without it tasting like rubbery failure and understand
why your basement will always be your basement
it's only scrabble if you prefer because i still have no idea
what kind of games you old people used to play
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