elegy for paper cranes by Katie Tian (15, New York)*

isn’t it funny how i was promised that paper memories were invincible, but yesterday they wilted in the summer heat? how promises made in youth don’t last? how grandma gave me origami cranes and simpler things, fairytales, metaphors, carved into asphalt & strung in intervals along the lining of my cranium—one, two, three— ​

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—one, to fold in my lap during first period history, plumage made from scraps of my father’s newspaper stained amber from his ritualistic morning coffee, of the father i don’t see often anymore. today, i only half-listen. in 1792, georges danton overthrew the french monarchy, says mr. campbell while bloodshed plays out on-screen, on the edge of my limitedperipheral vision. but look, listen, beyond the window sill: the blacktop pavement dyed crimson, cellophane ghosts, condemnation of innocents, red acrylics seeping into the cracks of neighborhood streets. 

—two, to keep in either back pocket of washed denimjeans. the other day i walked down to the lakes by the vineyard after school to set them free. i wished for hurricane winds, recollection, a painless departure from childhood. these fantasies are only vessels for my fragmented ambitions, and too burdened to take flight. i had dreams to be a star; now i can’t stay awake long enough to wish on one. mama found cranes in the washing machine, one mottled from the bloodstain on my favorite t-shirt, one pressed against bone-dry wisteria flowers from grandma’s hometown orchard. 

—three, to adorn the sides of a tarnished mahogany casket. those shallow incisions on wood materialize into images of folklore, of the fae, ofwhich grandma was always distrustful: this i want to scream, to make known, but instead i indulge in the fact that her company is now better kept. paper cranes make for finer companionship and mahogany is a rich people’s thing, but mama bargained with the sad old man down the street and got it for cheap. this is plastic painted mahogany, unwanted—elegance to externalise the grief, birdsong to embellish the funeral.