breed

we are young we are young we are young we are
still catching breath under fly-strung streetlamp.

the screen, it blares. this generation documented
like the edge of extinction. we salivate, we sing
to this nightless tune. what it means to be human,

that’s what you say on those ape knees. what it means
somewhere alternate: this hole this hole this hole this

worm-wriggled tunnel in damp earth. lace-wing. helix.
colors in another language. like red, when the man-king finds
we are all missing hands & feet. arms & legs. limb-

less & somehow still praying. in another world the space
between hip bones would be horizon. in this world

we have swallowed the yellow sky. this is nothing new.
this is choking on wires to the tune of forgiveness. we leak
& in the sour murk find mayflies. in the swarm

there is nothing to uncover, but the things we think will end
never do. summer days & exactly 93 shells on the lake.

for all of our brass words, this war still finds us
kneeling.

By Anna Wang

Biography:

Anna Wang is a high school sophomore from Lincolnshire, Illinois. She has been recognized by the Regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and her poetry appears in Eunoia Review.