A tangerine
Savored in juice or whole
Seldom served as a middle name.
Flakes of white
And a shell of supple epidermis;
A seed-chipped tooth
Beckoned by whispers of sweetness.
Round to be juggled,
Round to be prodded.
Titan-saffron
Under the beaming hospital bulbs
Which crackle and spark
Wishing to escape the confinement
Of all-knowing glass;
Waxen pale
Under the grit of the obstinate clementine sun.
Scapulas flash
In insight of their hindrance.
Your tongue splits its syllables
Into gelastic pairings of giggles
A sound never enshrined.
My name bears no romance,
Burdening no fame
Blooming from the teeming seams
Of my jaundiced-yellow veins.
Chloe Basch is a sophomore at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry. Chloe grew up in Manhattan and is passionate about impacting change through the written word. Her writing has been published in various publications including Creative Communications, Poetic Power, The East Hampton Star, and Bazoof Magazine. She is the recipient of the Scholastic Award Gold Key for her poetry. She was recently awarded a grant from Riley’s Way to amplify the voices of Ukrainian teenagers displaced by war. Chloe believes that words create our world and that the ability to write freely in society is a basic human right and one that allows for connectivity and powerful change.
Visual Art by Anthony Johnson