Zodiac Year of the Lamb 
Grace Wang

Honorable Mention, International Young Writers Prize, Poetry

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]

Mother, in her slight accent,

calls olives “Oliver.”

She loves Oliver, brine

salty in her mouth.

Almost twenty-five years in America

and she cannot differentiate

between a man and a fruit,

but what is the difference, really?

Both are green,

hollow on the inside.

We eat until our cheeks are full

and pretend to be satisfied:

Oliver in our stomachs, something

similar to a stone, but softer,

like a half-dissolved body.

Oliver between our hips,

Mother and I buy red clothing for the winter.

She calls everything beautiful,

mispronounces the word at uneven

intervals, but says it right

when she looks at me, hair braided

into a facsimile of the girl she used to be.

You’re just like me, she says.

Beautiful, like me.

She is wrong, and I never know

how to tell her.

Our lips and our throats match,

but our tongues have no relation.

Her stomach growls.

I pose for her.

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]

[av_one_half first][/av_one_half]

[av_one_half]Grace Wang is an incoming freshman at Harvard College. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Hyphen Magazine, Columbia College Chicago, The Interlochen Review, & the Indiana Repertory Theatre. She is from Columbus, Indiana, but spends all of her summers in China, where she fell in love with storytelling.
[/av_one_half]

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]Authentic Sneakers | FASHION NEWS