Figure Study

Aster Gamarnik ’23

Distractions

Little lilac ballroom, furniture drowned in white, Fantastical fairies, fluffy stuffies, and pretty flower fields.

Monday: tea party with Belle, Tuesday: ballet class with Polly, In my little lilac ballroom, these distractions kept me safe. Count the pink spots on your carpet dear. How about you write down those dreams in here. Maybe if you focus on what’s important, These silly little troubles will disappear. But when the tea goes cold, the biscuits stale, And my head grows dizzy from twirling all day, Boredom tears down my ballroom’s walls — To pry the distractions out of my palms.

I sit and peel the lilac paint, To reveal an arsenic green.

Ada Habip ’25

Octopus

Your eyes were acorns, Smooth gazes, tucking in trifles of apathy. Reason and rage now contend to be the blanket.

Your lips were roses, Once dressed in imminent blooms of haze: Now merlot-wine-spilling thorns.

Your arms were tentacles, Suctioning to moments of mellifluity And suffocating them in fleeting time.

Your legs were earthquakes: They couldn’t help but intrude past our forever.

Acorns aren’t around this time of winter, Roses won’t show until spring, Octopuses, maybe in the summer,

And I only feel your aftershock in empty space.