Our hair’s white with grey stripes, but we are still young.

All of our 32nd teeth are gone, but we are still young.

Our grandchildren call us “Grandpa and Grandma”, but we are still young.

Our veins sticks out when someone greets us, but we are still young.

No one can take away our youth from us.

There’s still some time left before the memories we made together slowly fade away.

The family we’ve created together.

Together we build a never-ending-ladder to reach the bright stars.

We are forever young.
 

Airports feel like slipping
beneath security lines and
constantly losing purchase on people.

Darting over connected seats to glass windows,
everywhere is somewhere to watch you leave.

Finding which plane to track
gets difficult as
horizons blur
into shapes of you.

Just another few years to
kill waiting for you in the
lobby of departures.

Maybe next time you’ll get me a
new apology from the airport gift shop. I keep the last
one with me at night
pretending I’m still the child you bought it for. Sometimes I
question if you
remember me.

Sometimes I question if I lost you in
the sky or if it was on the
underground train to terminal C. I don’t remember
very well. But I can’t seem to forget

why we say goodbye in front of the full body
x-ray machine. I always hope the security line is long because

It was a cloudy, melty Valentine's Day.
The snow was slipping off the sidewalks and cars
like drippy vanilla ice cream,
making a mess of everyone's shoes. 

Well, you and I
we were pretty in love.
I'm surprised I can recall the weather now,
since I didn't seem to be paying attention to anything other than you,
back then. 

You gave me handmade chocolate truffles,
heart-shaped and thick and dark,
neatly packaged in a clear container. 

A recycled rosé-lemonade glass bottle,
wrapped in crinkly white tissue,
held four beautiful lilies. 
They were a little droopy from the heat of the day,
but I didn't mind. 

Two months later I threw the rosé-lemonade bottle into the recycling,
the sound of the hard glass bouncing off the sides of the large bin. 
It was becoming spring, 
but the air still bit my skin as I reached back into the container,

Do
you
want
to
know
who
the
most
beautiful
person 
in 
the 
world
is?
If you do, read the second word.
 

When she looked at you, her eyes would sparkle in a full-of-magic way

When you looked at her clothes, they were ripped, dirty, and looked like rags

When she laughed, she filled you with an overflowing sensation of pure joy

When you saw her walk home, she went to a box in the park

When she listened to you, her face reflected all the right emotions

When you offered that she stay with you until she got a job, she laughed and walked away

When she was walking away, she called,

“I already have everything I need”

She was beautiful, but in a different sort of way
 

I left my house to go to school.
My parents went to work.
My bear got up and read the rules
My dolls shook out their quirks.
The dishes jumped out from the drawer,
Now they really worked!
They jumped and played,
They yelled Horray!
They danced and sung,
It'd really begun!
But then the clock struck three,
They now knew that my school was done,
And I'd be home, they'd have to flee
So quickly they cleaned,
And put back my jeans, 
And then they went back to their spots.
I opened the door,
Not a dot to be seen!
I went to my room and there was my bear,
Exactly where I left him.
I'd never know, that they played
And jumped and bounced and yelled Horray!
Except my little baby doll,
Sitting on the ladder, about to fall,
And not in her crib where I left her.


 

Quiet, at peace
No thoughts can break the barrier of my mind
I breathe, taking in air
Then breathe out
Letting all worries float away
I am at the mercy of my mind 

My mind is empty of today
and not yet full of tommorow
Tomorrow, thoughts
Worries, joys, and sadness
As I sit in between today and tomorrow

 

Kevin Young, poet, poetry editor of The New Yorker, and director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at New York Public Libraries, is giving a free lecture, open to the public, at the Davis Center at UVM on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 4 pm. Find out more!

 

Click and read!
 

Rebecca Valley has been chosen as the recipient of a new writing residency scholarship for YWP alumni at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT. Congratulations, Rebecca!