Riverside Reverie
Matt Hsu
Fall-Contest
San Francisco, California, USA
San Francisco University High School
Poetry
The stones in my palm, sculling, stamping, skittering
beneath sapphire river foam. You remember, don’t
you: the wicker-baskets that held wine-soaked plums,
the paperbacks bulging their necks inside walnut-wood
boxes, the broken butterflies that blessed our backs with
nectarine kisses. Hailing the sky with bejeweled thumbs
and ankles, we prayed for sweet showers, goldenrod,
bluebells, magpie tears. Picked tangerines from your
palace and smoldered them into burnt glass, uncorked jugs
of olive oil with our molars, drove our noses into the
soil and found faux emeralds beneath the surface. Your
fingers, capped with grass-blade-rings, wriggling behind
a mountain I would never see again. We were adjunct, we
were inevitable, we were intoxicating: we were reverie.
ELOGIOS EDITORIALES
I interpret this poem to be about heaven on earth, about finding divinity in the beautiful things in life. From bejeweled thumbs to olive oil (which are common symbols of divinity!), the author skillfully recreates this ethereal reverie.
Matt Hsu is a high school senior from San Francisco, California. He works as a poetry/prose editor at Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine and Kalopsia Lit. His work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and he’s published or forthcoming in Polyphony Lit, Blue Marble Review, ANGLES, and Movable Type. Currently he’s querying his first novel, a thriller-mystery about a crafty assassin. In his spare time, he enjoys playing tennis and eating dark chocolate. You can find him on Twitter at @MattHsu19.
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