Sentimentalia – Norah Kratz

Sitting on the carpet,

 falling asleep on a cream painted windowsill.

I was a velvety little girl, with sour candy veins

It was naptime, but my eyes were winking, young 

Crept to the glass and looked at the children

Searching for blue eggs, round heads slouching

There are two, Little Girl and Little Boy

Baskets hoop through their mosquito-sweet arms

They are my sugar sap, my earliest memory

Little Girl and Little Boy sing with the cicadas

The foamy notes create the ballad of nostalgia

The anthem of a more sublime hour

Time danced like a drunken man, looping back

Knotting over my head until it drops onto my chest

My cheeks are red, my eyes, the tips of my fingers

Red from remembering, red from forgetting, red, red

Cream paint smells of childhood that wails, sobs

I see the girl on the sill, sighing warm, milky sleep

I wish I could kiss her eyelids, say

Please stay awake, look around!

The divine sun is shining now, but booming clouds come

Oh, please, the wind is rising, screaming

It drowns out all of the delicate, larking voices 

Of the Little Children and the cicadas

Singing, singing