A Bitter Homesick Gaze

Kiki Grace '24

I let my feet into that newly worn sand. Shell dust ruffles across my new shoes and leans its back across the cylinders; my soft wool stockings.

I swallow my sour and Close My Eyes

And link with this harbor

I raise a glass of ice tea and we clink

I trail its endless outside edge And give its pit a stone-cold Though brave in its straightforward Bold Blank

Uninterested Blink

And night’s weary climbs up my back.

I itch the scabs

And irritated, I flick my combed swirls of youth and promise Into a full swing of odium and revolt Of The curious eyes

That once upheld me

As they never dare to see since I traversed the current and surrounding clouds projected glaze upon my patient tourist eyes

Again I clink

Again I suffer as I force

Some appreciative internal stutter

Though only what is apparent

Is some cold shudder.

Some outraged blaring outright mindless hopeless brain-powered clutter

Some merchants in the business.

Some boats loyal to their sailors.

Swaying stubbornly in their captive-keeping shallow breadth.

Humble bows and adventurous sails; competent when it's convenient. Perfect heirs. My protruded reflection. My deviant reflection.

Somewhere in the distance

Some godforsaken district

In this harbor all too real.

A tympanum.

Eight lines and a point harness me.

I feel my feet slowly drift. I feel them curve.

My eyes trace the edge of the smooth mahogany

No, it's walnut

Walnut veneer

Graceful brass envelopes the sun that pains my prying homesick eyes

That silver clamshell is suddenly

The sole sun residing over this new colony.

Silver

Draws open and close below the tympanum

And the merchant’s dry hands unfurl tightly around the handles

Our eyes register

The silver draws are beckoning me And serpentine wooden crevices; molding that mimicked the soft current of the harbor that dreary morning peer at me through their fable; their fear reflecting oiled eyes.

The high chest was dreary; weary of its displacement. Like the unworn fabrics of velvet, silk of polychromatic patterns and forthright lace and blunt blue-gray linen unfolding daintily in my side-eyed glare, that rest near

It was propped in a way so it was cleared for; worried for; beholden to its status, standing calmly while others rallied It glimmered in its oceanic way.

And now I look at the golden pine cones that smirk. Looking down at me from the tip of the hefty walnut box. Surely they are fit for Queen Anne. Maybe they will suit me

Or maybe I will find a way to be deserving of this high chest. Smeared in English picturesque

Soaked in that vitality

And suddenly dropped in a harbor that nervously struggles. Alarmingly bubbles like a forest with uncombed rubble. A bearded man with patches of stubble. Drowsy colonials and drowning prospects.

And for all I know its deliverance to this harbor

Maybe where its brass

And Its walnut

With walnut veneer

Is exactly where it ought to be seated high

This high chest

And lay in this perspiring harbor so it may rest.

Consumed by Sickness Aidan Pesce '23 Ceramics