Tree

At the leaf
My brother is building his Lego helicopter
He fights in World War I
A collision, and the colors fall apart
The tiles spill to the floor, and scatter
Apart like the resst

At the branch
My father is reading the Chinese newspaper on the Internet
He clicks the mouse like a champion athlete
Many pages flash across the screen
Green, purple, red, blue, black, yellow
Yet he understands the colors of rainbow

At the stem
My mother is heaving a white mop
Up and down, up and down the olive staircase4
The carpet is sagging with the moisture
But my mother still scrubs endlessly
At the black spot near the third stair

At the root
My grandmother bustles in her kitchen
Ferociously grinding beans in her soybean machine
The milky foam leaks and splatters the table in little puddles
And stains her purple jacket
But she is too busy attacking the broken buttons

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Nancy Xu, age14
San Francisco, California
Lowell High School
Teachers: Bissa Zamboldi/Susan Terence