Magdalawit Makonnen
Magdalawit Makonnen was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She read an English degree at UCLA and is currently studying for an MFA at Antioch University, Los Angeles. She has been published in many journals.
Wheat on Grass
Moon, you nursed my childhood bruises.
Stream, I only knew you in dreams.
Rain, you were a visitor I welcomed,
face pressed onto window-panes.
Wind, I felt you ripple in the sun.
Those who held hands know how to scatter like wheat on grass.
How to pick peaches from the old peach tree
in the backyard, leaning out from a windowsill,
and pile them in heaps for aunt Azeb
to make a pot of peach-soup with.
To make dreams from the everyday
we’d find objects with dull surfaces to smooth
with our small hands and keep:
candy-wrappers, rusty coins dug from the backyard,
and tiny beads in drawers under piles of old letters…
Knotting elbows, we’d always go walking, and would
look back for the treasures we might have left behind.
It was okay for us to look back then;
for children can do so and survive.
