Evan Burkin
Summer Snapped
Never at a loss for sweetness, I pressed lemon rinds
to my teeth & learned to snap each finger three times.
Three times, I turned to snapping each of my fingers
for a sweetness I could never lose.
Lemon rinds: sweet nests of yellow. My teeth snapped
fingers each way three times. How else to describe the
nostalgia of childhood? Numb joy: a loss of sweetness
in snapping, a snapshot of summer.
Summer: when the sun nestles as a lemon held above
a blue maw. The teeth of the blue maw never numb the
joy of summer. Joy: a blue maw. I snap for lemons. Held
above the sun, another sun snaps.
Childhood is learning an ache for loss. Nostalgia. I press
three times. Nostalgia: a childhood of fingers & teeth. I
press three times for faces I have never seen. I’ve learned
adulthood is an accumulation of distances.
Evan Burkin (he/him) is fond of authors who delight in breaking language open, such as Will Alexander, Diane di Prima, and Olga Tokarczuk. He is currently working toward an MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, The Madrigal, Sur, Inklette, and Rain Taxi.
Return to Janaury 2023 Edition
Never at a loss for sweetness, I pressed lemon rinds
to my teeth & learned to snap each finger three times.
Three times, I turned to snapping each of my fingers
for a sweetness I could never lose.
Lemon rinds: sweet nests of yellow. My teeth snapped
fingers each way three times. How else to describe the
nostalgia of childhood? Numb joy: a loss of sweetness
in snapping, a snapshot of summer.
Summer: when the sun nestles as a lemon held above
a blue maw. The teeth of the blue maw never numb the
joy of summer. Joy: a blue maw. I snap for lemons. Held
above the sun, another sun snaps.
Childhood is learning an ache for loss. Nostalgia. I press
three times. Nostalgia: a childhood of fingers & teeth. I
press three times for faces I have never seen. I’ve learned
adulthood is an accumulation of distances.
Evan Burkin (he/him) is fond of authors who delight in breaking language open, such as Will Alexander, Diane di Prima, and Olga Tokarczuk. He is currently working toward an MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, The Madrigal, Sur, Inklette, and Rain Taxi.
Return to Janaury 2023 Edition