2012 MONTGOMERY COUNTY
YOUTH POETRY CONTEST

10-12 GRADE RUNNER UP

Emily Clark
The Baldwin School

The Urn

Your bones are so brittle.
You left them in the kiln yesterday afternoon while they became
dry and parched.
Your father placed the enamel carvings next to the cracked pottery
he used to make on Sunday mornings--
The red clay molded by deep indents called fingers,
which pound the muddy mouths of the earth
so thirsty and wanting.
Almost as greedy as the yellow lips of the urn you made together while
The shavings from the table hissed their smoldering jealousy
with delicate tongues run dry from the pressure of the sun.
Why did you forget them?
The burned braising that drew rings around the marrow look like the golden wedding band
Your mother dropped in the drainpipe.
Your father's heavy breathing as he rescues the promise he made
on that humid hour in June.
The calligraphy in the caverns of your cheekbones formed by the brush strokes are red and sour.
The markings from the days when you swallowed
the robin pecking on your windowsill,
A reminder of what is and what was.
Eating away at the moss inside of your ears as your mouth opens and closes because
You can't remember how to make the urn
you and your father shaped those warm days in June.
Instead
Your fantasies lie lonely on their backs groveling to the sun
Listening to the shrill cry of dawn
Ripping the clouds so they can't sew themselves back together.