Ragged red dress still holding to your flesh
Well into the gutter city of your youth
You sail through the glass
In a savage embrace of all your pains
Isn’t this emptiness just sublime?
That naked angry howl.
Yes, you wished for rain
Baked for years in the slow churning of that mighty sun
Can there ever be too much blue sky?
Oh, Luci
Once you were a dreamer
Ballerina, serene, and little,
Glorious turns on shivering toes
That ancient amber
Now dark and dim
Half-past forever
Now laid bare a feast
For beastly, hungry vultures
Who will save you now, Luci?
Cemeteries filled with heroes?
In the late of the night
When you obscure the blade of life with a smile
When you bargain your soul
defending a blow
When you dissolve in shadow
In drops
In night’s roars of indifference
When you greet greed dressed in love
I tremble for you
Luci
I tremble for you
I know your shoulders are
bruised
battered
broken
But, let them feel my tears
Just this one time
Oh, Luci.
Ashley Renselaer is a ninth-grade student at Windward School in Mar Vista, California. She believes that poetry and prose have the power to change hearts and minds, creating a better world. Some of Ashley’s writing has recently appeared in the Lily Poetry Review, Inlandia, and The Loud Journal.
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