Amanda Maret Scharf & Hannah Smith

Streaming an Unsung Galaxy

Hanging on the wall of my parents’ bedroom, a summer
reunion pulls me into the frame. From the outside,
you might call this a posed childhood. In reality,
I’ve been kept waiting for the names no one uttered. I carved hers
into the oak tree out back. The one planted before
the neighborhood filled in aster and asphalt. My private landfill
used to grow rancid in the sun, but now I house the data, collect
the pattern of loved hardware. There is a structure for losing
a relationship. Despite braiding my losses into muscle and tendon, I strain
to see through the blinds. Pollen settles onto the patio, and I’m okay now.
Spring has greened my fingers, the birds rebuilt an oval nest. I call in
the dog, and pull my eyes away from the mechanized past. From here,
you might believe this new tune is a star song.

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Amanda Maret Scharf is a poet from Los Angeles. Her poems have been published in Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, The Iowa Review and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of publishing initiative and artist collaboration, mixedgreens. During her MFA at Ohio State, she served as Poetry Editor for The Journal.

Hannah Smith is a writer from Dallas, Texas. She received an MFA in poetry at the Ohio State University, where she served as the Managing Editor of The Journal. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter and elsewhere.