High School Poetry Winner from the 2011 issue
Brown
Grace Hoefs
Brown space,
brown plains and skyline.
Even the air tastes brown.
Not like chocolate, like dirt.
Like a bear in your yard
that keeps coming back.
Brown like bread—
bland,
nothing.
Shoulder-length, cascading ringlets—
her sister tells her they’re beautiful.
But how can that be?
They’re brown.
Her light, sea-foam,
freezing rain,
sorrowful,
blue eyes
peer out through the murk
of a dirty life.
