Poetry: “The End”

By Eliana von Krusenstiern, 17
Massachusetts

Smooth the veins to turn back time,

Pushing the petals of your pulse

Into the palms of your hands, while

Their eyes, clouded with cataracts follow

The threads of yarn that

Slowly cascade to your feet.

And you, with your irises fading

To a dry, pale indigo, gaze back, and watch

As a droplet of saliva slips softly, almost

Romantically

Down the  chin of a woman who says that

When she

Was seventeen, Elvis told her

She had the finest behind East

Of the Mississippi.

While you grind the ax

On the crumbling stone

The clicking of the needles quickens

Your pulse to a steady beat

And you feel the heat of the promise you made

In the silence of summer to

No one but yourself and the sun.

But, dear, with your lack of words

And long sharp thorns,

Your meager aspirations will not travel far.

So tuck your shirttails in, and crawl, slowly,

Towards the feather bed from which you came.