The sidewalk shadows are beautiful

at noon this time of year:

they are flourishing sun contrasts,

perfect vacant silhouettes.

The air stings here but is not unbearable.

My shirt hangs heavy with sweat;

hair grasps my neck tearfully

like a failing, exhausted lover.

The sun has blithely promised us 

a persisting, furious Patti life,

each young flower bright and defiant,

the old ones withered little birds.

The eventual slowing haunts me.

I long to walk with no approaching end,

with no happy hand in the clouds,

no sister to help me up the stairs.

I lapse in pace like a child

to stop and admire and feed delusion,

but my destination has remained

scrawled in the sand since birth.

This dirt prophecy is divinely established:

to enter the unmarked final spot,

to leave my bag at the door,

to greet home with a long cold shower.

Micah Gresl-Turner is a College first-year and enjoyer of words originally from South Bend, IN. She is fascinated with the capture of small, fleeting feelings, and aims to achieve that in her poetry.