Green Carnations Every plant I’ve ever tried to take care of Since my fourth-grade pea project has met The same dry, neglected demise. This is to say that All the things I nurture decide one day they feel dead inside So, on my way to pick up our groceries they pack their things And escape through the windowpane I had meant to stay open to Let the light in.
—Submitted on 02/18/2022
Matthew Dawkins is the author of the novel Until We Break (Wattpad Books, 2022). His poems have appeared in Uplifting Blackness: A Showcase of Art by Western’s Black Student Community at Western University in London, where he is an undergraduate.
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Editor’s Note: The series title A River Sings is borrowed from “On the Pulse of Morning,” the poem read by Maya Angelou at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
