Two Poems by Gervanna Stephens

Senses
Green heat shrubbery surrounding.
Still July sweltering August.
Closing time countdown to five
Senses— taste and see
Heard of the baker's touch? Smell the aroma of results.
Summer is ended.
The pink of summer
The sun, gazes too hard kisses and the earth wakes ablaze core calling, ache to melt nearly as hot as summer’s mother banishes us outdoors forbids much clothing engages with nature— grandmother, knows best a mind should not be cooped up raise arms to the heavens let mother spill her rays.
June’s murky haze reflects burnt in the green ripens the lychee— a rugged red marble ready for the pilfering tongue springing to lave sweetly sour, too heavy melody as the birds quote sweet things far off clouds awash in their cover birth every morning the bristle of summer.
Gervanna Stephens is a Jamaican poet and proud Slytherin with congenital amputation living in Canada. Her work has appeared in magazines like 8 poems, TERSE. Journal, WusGood.black, Whirlwind Magazine, Enclave, 12 Point Collective and Anti-Heroin Chic. She hates public speaking, has two sisters who are way better writers than her and thinks unicorns laugh at us when we say they aren’t real. Tweets @ gravitystephens
Image by Julie Falk, found on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/5Boxjj