Corncob
She hands me the corn,
the burnt one.
I brush the blackened char off the
cob, watch the ashes fall into the water below me.
I raise it to my lips, grip it between
my lopsided, dejected teeth. I bite
down into the fleshy yellow kernels,
the smell of campfire filling my nostrils.
Later I will tell my secrets to them. They will
laugh and gasp, the perfect audience.
The surface of the water bobs like Jell-O. My damp
sock, streaked with
mud, dips in and out. It strikes me
that tomorrow I will leave this place, leave the trees hunched
together, whispering. Leave the full moon melting
into its reflection. Leave the long-forgotten
corn husk floating on the water's edge.
Molly Bond is a fourteen-year-old high-school student at the San Francisco School of the Arts. Her work was selected by San Francisco Poet Laureate Devorah Major for the de Young Museum's Poets in the Galleries Showcase and has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle's "Kids Put their Best Rhymes Forward" for National Poetry Month, Metazen, Dogzplot, and Newport Review. Some of Molly's other poems and stories are viewable on Fictionaut. Molly lives in San Francisco with three cats, a dog, two rats, a bearded dragon lizard, a betta fish, and her parents. Molly once walked around her entire house without touching the floor.
Corncob
She hands me the corn,
the burnt one.
I brush the blackened char off the
cob, watch the ashes fall into the water below me.
I raise it to my lips, grip it between
my lopsided, dejected teeth. I bite
down into the fleshy yellow kernels,
the smell of campfire filling my nostrils.
Later I will tell my secrets to them. They will
laugh and gasp, the perfect audience.
The surface of the water bobs like Jell-O. My damp
sock, streaked with
mud, dips in and out. It strikes me
that tomorrow I will leave this place, leave the trees hunched
together, whispering. Leave the full moon melting
into its reflection. Leave the long-forgotten
corn husk floating on the water's edge.
Molly Bond is a fourteen-year-old high-school student at the San Francisco School of the Arts. Her work was selected by San Francisco Poet Laureate Devorah Major for the de Young Museum's Poets in the Galleries Showcase and has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle's "Kids Put their Best Rhymes Forward" for National Poetry Month, Metazen, Dogzplot, and Newport Review. Some of Molly's other poems and stories are viewable on Fictionaut. Molly lives in San Francisco with three cats, a dog, two rats, a bearded dragon lizard, a betta fish, and her parents. Molly once walked around her entire house without touching the floor.
