Wet Season
When I die will I steam like a tea kettle?
The one at my grandmother’s house is silver
and whistles; in the night
its music bounded in stone and moonlit
woods. In this quiet dark I’d
sneak to the shower room
for the wetness of water droplets
hot on my legs, the easy bliss of a
showerhead, the puckering chill of the tile
against my back, reclined.
In Chicago it’s white and plastic,
flimsy, as if it would melt
the moment my eyes
unfocused, steam turning stale wooden cabinets
to mulch. Back then, you’d come downstairs
to make a tuna sandwich
as I waited for the water to boil.
Now I forget to respond to your messages
and I can’t even imagine dying,
I don’t know what it would look like;
would you steam like that screaming kettle in the woods?
In California it’s raining,
dirt particles suspended in the air
weighed down by new humidity, washed
away, drops jump through
the gap under my door.
They leave a big wet mark, I wait for it to
evaporate in the cold –
and where is the summer we were promised?
Where are the grandchildren?
When I finally call you back over
the timefolds, you talk about the poems
you’ve been writing, the satisfaction, the fear, emergent
and punishing now in this last season.
Introducing the Winner
Emma Ashley, a senior studying creative writing and French, is originally from Oak Park, Illinois. Always interested in the shape of space and time, Ashley was inspired to write her winning entry, the previously unpublished poem “Wet Season,” as a way to think about the distances between herself and her loved ones, both across the world and over the years.
Ashley started writing poetry in 2019 during her freshman year at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, finding relief in the art as a practice of reflection. She continued writing during the pandemic and says she has since “fallen in love with the process of careful and loving reflection that poetry requires.” Now in her final year at USC Dornsife, Ashley is the recipient of the 2023 Silverman Family Memorial Award for poetry and plans to continue pursuing her journey as a poet after she graduates. Her work has appeared in Palaver Arts Magazine and Zeniada Magazine.