Dear Lyre (Contest Winner)
Poem by Jiayi Z.
9th-12th GRADE WINNER FOR SPRING 2024 POETRY CONTEST. Prompt: All submissions must be in the form of an epistolary poem. An epistolary poem is a poem that reads as a letter to any person, place, or thing. As poems of direct address, they can be intimate and colloquial, or formal and measured. The subject matter can range from philosophical investigation to a declaration of love to a list of errands, and epistles can take any form, from heroic couplets to free verse. Your poem must be between 150 and 300 words.
I will call you when evening arrives on its tail.
Then, you will see the squirrels digging for dust-covered acorns
by the wood anemones, and I, anonymously
picking five petals at a time.
I will pedal down the sidewalks halfway
in case you did not notice the columbines were worn out,
asleep under the soil’s spell
beneath the school’s signs up front.
You’re not the only one who did not see the signs
of whatever needs to go wrong.
Let me tell you about the DoorDash driver
who only understands Urdu
and never noticed the columbines and the signs.
He reached out to me the other day. I yelled into the phone,
“The second turn on the Drive!” again and again.
He was silent for a second, and then — on,
on, on, onto the drive and only in dreams did he reach me.
Finally, my food is here with me. I guess it’s the same.
The same can be passed on to what is lost
in the translation of love and hate. So —
So find a time to look at me.
Me and only me — with the curiosity
of nothing more than the Denny’s cups and lids,
and the plastic bags on the back of your bike.
I will save you some Mac & Cheese
and put it in the microwave.
The clock will run down today.
I will open the door when the alarm goes off.
Farewell.
At midnight, when the gossips run,
bring me those stained white gloves —
a love at seventeen.
I will not mumble this to you
in person, for I could not flutter
with the dust motes on a Friday afternoon.
Words bite.
So we can just lay back and write —
tell me why.
I’m curious about what you have to say.
Comments from the judge, Ananda Lima: I love the moments this poem reveals and what it withholds and how those choices work with the voice create a strong sense of intimacy between the addressee and the speaker, without us having to know everything about them. The poem also offers us delightful unexpected metaphors (the evening arriving on its tail, columbines asleep under the soil’s spell, the curiosity of Denny’s cups and lids).
