Finalist

 

Swimming Summer

 

Winding

down a slow maple-syrup snake

She shucks her skin to either side,

slicks the moss and sweetens the trees.

Summer crystallizes in the drops that

spatter her banks.

The old black inner tube is hot,

sucks at your skin, ripples over hers

Slow and steady as the shadows of clouds,

as a tongue over smooth lips.

In places,

grayish scum drifts

among the tree-roots that peer over the clay and sand.

You can see flies’ wings if you look closely in the froth

because they refract the dim leaf-light

but you prefer to watch the water

when it breaks open to sky and sun and

the arching concrete bridges.

They lift high and bare, like ribs, deserts,

gasps.

They say the river burns red-golden

from the sap of the cedar trees in mountains

that you’ve never seen;

you prefer to think of

hot honey,

molten amber,

swimming summer.

 

---

Diana Chien, age 16

Holmdel, New Jersey

Holmdel High School

Teacher: Joan Cichalski

© River of Words