Claudia Ann Seaman Award
Watching Two Boys on a Train Home after the New York Pride Festival, 2016
Kirby Wilson
Hampton, SC
South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities
Poetry
They remind him of Georgia, where
summer nights were spent stealing
too-ripe peaches from the branch, ripping
through skin. Too much teeth, not enough
mouth, same way the boy he loved
said he kissed him.
He wouldn’t tell anyone but God,
the way the boy traced his spine under
grass-stained tees made a
home, which he wants to tell
the boys next to him, who unbutton
rainbow pins from their polos. He wonders
if they’ve cherished bones under a
harvest moon, or kissed each other in
daylight, or understood the metaphor of
honeysuckle growing underneath a sidewalk.
Instead, he hands the boys a container
of Vaseline and says he knows
this is the easiest way
to take off glitter.
EDITORIAL PRAISE
A simple yet heartfelt poem of the author reminiscing past experiences through the scene they see before them.
Kirby Wilson is a senior creative writing student at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. Their work has been previously recognized by the YoungArts Foundation, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and Bennington Young Writers Awards. When they’re not writing, they can be found making a chai latte, reading Tao Lin, or listening to Phoebe Bridgers on repeat.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR