PLEASE TELL ME THIS WILL NOT LAST FOREVER
chapel street shifts pitch deep winter;
its edges, sharper its scents brighter, brittle
like peppermint or bone
where fever bush frozen
berry holly reaches its thorns to bristle
my fingers with its bitter tang
………………………………where deep—
beneath permafrost and
rust and dirty snow slush lies me
……….covered, cold in remnants of
an old white school song
……….……….……….……….our home
and native land haunting
my memory of spring.
Author’s Bio
Ellen Chang-Richardson (she/her) is an award-winning poet and editor of Taiwanese and Cambodian-Chinese descent. The author of three chapbooks including snap, pop, performance (Gap Riot Press), her work has appeared in untethered, Watch Your Head: Writers & Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis, and The Fiddlehead, among others.
www.ehjchang.com