Woman before the Rising Sun by Lauren Zhu (17, New York)

​Yellow your lips with borrowed
light and scrapped
scales. This is how you

keep your elbows from
skimming the splintering
rock. Swaddle your
wrists in fern. Bead hand-me-

down cocoons onto these bangles.
One for your first forgotten password.
One for your mother.
Find a bed of crackling

​scorpions and field mice.
Pick them up by stinger
and by tail, until
the sun dries their

summering coats.
Emerge onto the dawning
plains, smelling of
sage and hair slick with

​sweat. You have
earned an olive cloak.