Mandy Chen

    Shen Wai International School

    It was dark when we got there.

    It reminds me of her nails.

    So I held her tight against me

    and told her not to worry.

    That’s when we heard the crows

    cawing the sound of a broken string

    mingled with her sobbing.

    But it was dark

    darker than the elephant trunk I brought back to her from Africa.

    I enveloped her, body and all

    without seeing who she was

    What she was.

    I held her against me,

    my face to hers

    thinking its temperature might give her some comfort.

    For her face was

    as cold as mother’s pancake

    and as black as

    her tears.