Our family is a web of pilgrims,
my mother tells me at dinner.
They were pilgrims weeping into the river,
frothing with rain and drinking up oranges,
the oranges that baka got for Christmas,
squelching with juice and sour and sun.
My mom asks if my grandmother would want
to read an article about her family.
Baka aged too quickly; she watched as pilgrims
left iron shoes in the wake of the Danube,
her father, the wine-dipping man,
sinking like the orange in water, an O on his lips.
Yes, she would want to read about those years on the Danube,
those rainfalls and sun showers and
stinging grief on our eyelids,
net of slain fruit in our palms.
my mother tells me at dinner.
They were pilgrims weeping into the river,
frothing with rain and drinking up oranges,
the oranges that baka got for Christmas,
squelching with juice and sour and sun.
My mom asks if my grandmother would want
to read an article about her family.
Baka aged too quickly; she watched as pilgrims
left iron shoes in the wake of the Danube,
her father, the wine-dipping man,
sinking like the orange in water, an O on his lips.
Yes, she would want to read about those years on the Danube,
those rainfalls and sun showers and
stinging grief on our eyelids,
net of slain fruit in our palms.
Julieanne Larick is a student and writer living in Cleveland. She is an English major at The College of Wooster. Julieanne edits for The Incandescent Review and interns at GASHER Journal. She has poems in Kalopsia Literary Journal, The Incandescent Review, Ogma Magazine, and others. Julieanne loves to sew, watercolor, and was born in 2003. Her portfolio is julielarickwriting.com and her Twitter is @crookyshanks.