2015 Katey Lehman Creative Writing Award
Sadie
by Julia Kelsey
In April, the daffodils herald love,
Crowned and pale as sweet-breathed specters among the trees.
The honeybees fill my father’s hives with flawless
Combs that we will spin, coaxing out their amber beads, and in the
Hayloft dust motes float, incandescent in the halo gaps between
Tired boards, the paint resigning in bark-like curls. In the
Crook of the eaves a barn swallow has crafted a nest of
Ancient hay and horse hair.
In April, mute-gold blooms
stir by bleached bones and I remember
How for her we had gathered phlox and shovels and ourselves.
My little brother’s face had broken under all of that
Raw love, and she was so remarkably still,
His pumpkin-colored cat curled up on the bleeding clay.
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