by Carolina Hospital

In our sticky plaid uniforms and loose pony tails, we skip and jump,

pocketing minutes from the cool soft twilight, rushing all play before our

mother hails us. The front lawn is a wide field on which we collapse,

bruised knees, roll and roll and roll, sprawled in damp greenery. 

I run my finger down
the silken green blade
a gentle snap.
Along its vein I unzip
the leaf, so thin it curls
like a lover’s smile.

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Carolina Hospital is a poet, novelist, and editor. Her books include Key West Nights and Other Aftershocks (Anhinga Press); The Child of Exile: a Poetry Memoir (Arte Público Press); the novel, A Little Love, under the pen name C. C. Medina (Warner Books); and A Century of Cuban Writers in Florida (Pineapple Press). Her works have appeared in the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature; the anthology Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Occupy the Workplace; Florida Literature, and Longman’s Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing.