Austria

julia bohm

Every apple turns
green and sour.
The sun is there
and not there,
dotted with the
shadows of hands.
A fan turns
in a blue room.
My eyes sting,
onions everywhere.
Littering the
kitchen counter.
My sister loved
onions. An ocean
is an expanse of
water, a cold body.
Tonight it bows.
It is dreaming of
the sky, and the sky’s
parallel blueness.
The sun is
burning. The
birds think: There
is something burning
in the sky and
we live in the sky
and that most
certainly
will kill us.
The ocean
is dreaming
of feathers.
I do not want
to own the world.
Instead to pin
it down by the
throat.
Leave a bruise.
Hands block
out light and also
touch people, which
is a kind of light.
So which is it?
No one will
ever hold all
of you. There
is always the
wispy what if
that trails your
every move like
a silent crow.
A woman crosses
the ocean
and the ocean
is merciful.
A blue room is
quiet and parallel
to the sky.
My sister is
grown, tall.
Every apple
goes uneaten.
A woman
leaves a house
and now the
house feigns
emptiness.
All onions, all
bright and alone.
The sun flickers
like a ghost.
Last night I
turned and swore
I saw her body
in the red armchair,
splayed like
something dead.

JULIA BOHM is the 2017 winner of Interlochen's Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Scholarship. Her work can be found in Public Pool Magazine and Drunk in a Midnight Choir. A resident of Ann Arbor, MI, Julia will attend Interlochen Arts Academy in the fall.