no more childhood left

by Alexandra Weiss

long after we've gone i can smell the wild sage
fog drifting around the bend
low hanging
among the oranges
eight years out of twenty four
we lived in the woods there
with the wide-spaced houses and the
county drainage ditch
empty lots covered in dry grass
walled in by cypress fences
sycamore, live oak
dead pines towering remote
and up the mountain
the missile station, reliquary
to mistletoe and pet memorials
blackened trunks, twisting from the
mustard where the fires were
chicory stars and word of mouth for
where the snakes pool in the dust
when i get homesick it's for the cerulean
beyond the windows and the cherrywood
the dark trees when night overtakes the world beyond the canyon
with its early sunset over westridge
or it's for downed trees in monsoon season
deer skeletons left by the trailhead with the
dead end sign to remind me of
abarat and shel
silverstein and another,
remoter past i wished i could go back to
but now
it's only these hillsides and the
gold glints of straw in the sun, cozy
gray greens of the floss silk trees and
fear that another scorpion
will nest in my pajamas
but we already didn't live here anymore
and now we don't live in la at all
and tomorrow is our birthday, mom,
and i'm proud that you
stopping dyeing your hair but
scared for what it means
and the last thread falls

Alexandra Weiss is a grad student in Chicago researching how we discuss science, illness, and death through literature. She's proud to be a BRCA+ previvor. Her work has appeared in Plants & Poetry, Haggard and Halloo, Cadaverine, Wildfire, and Another Chicago Magazine, among others.