requiem for nightfall by Abigail Song (17, California)

your body placed into
two caskets. one: spread-eagle
below a rain-battered ground,
navy blued in the front edge of dusk. 

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two: caged in 12pt helvetica
on a cream white newslet
peppered with saline tears.
life as fragile as two ivory fish-
hooks onto you but unclasped, undone, you fall below a crimson bridge stained with sea bream and
sea scales. so this is the verdict:
that your ragdoll body dissolved
in between slivers of fistfuls
of foam where the silver
light leaks through perhappened warmth that we pretend to feel.
but when day breaks, my eyes
will leak liquid trees that no
autopsy will diagnose. murmurings
of peach cream wind licks
slip into disharmonious din.
when the willow tree bristles up against the december winds
all remembered is your soft body pressed against its winter bark
now even the languor of the
evenings feels spiny. thinking of
jet black blood on my fingertips when your second body, i tore up in denial. but even the scorched winter melon can blossom a slow hyacinth
from its cored out flesh.
and when the evening spreads
its whispers gentle against the bulrushes and when frost thaws to dew and when the sky is struck
with an aureate cream of cumuli,
your body is constellated
on the tail-end of a morning star. letting dawn begin in earnest. 

Abigail Song (she/her) is a 17 year old, Korean-American writer living in the Bay Area in California. She is a 2023 American Voices Nominee (Best in Region), a Scholastic Arts and Writing national medalist, a Kenyon Young Writers alumna, and a 2022 California Arts Scholar. As an ardent advocate for Asian-American social justice, she explores the intersection between literature and activism. Besides writing, Abigail is an enthusiastic gouache painter and a reckless baker.
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