EMERGING ARTISTS & WRITERS: JENNIFER BOYD & ELLIE WHITESIDE
JENNIFER BOYD
HYMN TO ORION'S BELT
In Jackson Square, there’s a whisper of scathed
traffic lights, an emperor besieged by dice, crescent
tongues frothing. I nod the silvery plains like a
sleepwalker.
Snowstorms break our fine china. We stutter
to hide our forgetfulness in tea houses. Repeat
a third sentence; tell me the words that make
you writhe. Inhale from your vowel pipe. Let go
of the exhaust fumes.
The lisp you murmured,
that wrangled villain. Swing away your bad
dreams
ELLIE WHITESIDE
WILDFLOWER
this is where the blue flax has been
blooming, bloodstained
she’s been holding your hand
girls flattened so red it’s a sea,
silken, ringed by pondweed, they
melt themselves, sweet skin egg shells
the flavor of the sea, of the spring, of the
summer that rockets yellow in your
fingers, black eyed susans your eyes,
the highway weeds so green your arms.
the blackberries sit moldy in the earth
i haven’t reached the woods lately
and every girl, dirt-colored, spread and
silken in the trees, has dyed herself purple.
Jennifer Boyd is a high school student from Hull, Massachusetts. Her poems and fiction have appeared in Life in 10 Minutes and Teen Ink, and she has works forthcoming in Germ Magazine and Moledro Magazine.
Ellie Whiteside is a sixteen year old girl from New Jersey who writes and is most of the time thinking about science fiction and doing homework for English class.