Letter to a Teen
By Eileen Pettycrew
Students in a Dallas school district must wear clear backpacks after Uvalde shooting.
—NPR, July 19, 2022
Is it enough to say
I’m rooting for you, though I was
never a cheerleader. Enough to say
I’m thinking of you, like a Hallmark card.
Is it enough to say my whole school
had to evacuate, shiver for hours
in the bleachers. She did it on a dare.
Her name was Bonnie, freshman calling in
a bomb scare. Is it enough
my brother cracked like a windshield
and became a stranger. That was
the year I forgot how to feel. The year
of leather drawstring purses girls carried
like dark planets. Tampons, lip gloss,
gum, cigarettes. Numbness,
my secret crush. Listen to me
blather on. I would have written sooner
but I didn’t know what to say.
And now it’s December.
Is it enough I see sunrise
reflected in my car window,
and silhouetted there,
the bare branches of trees,
still carrying their dose of night?Eileen Pettycrew’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in ONE ART, New Ohio Review, CALYX Journal, Cave Wall Press, SWWIM Every Day, and other journals. In 2022 she was one of two runners-up for the Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry from Press 53, and a finalist for both the NORward Prize for Poetry from New Ohio Review as well as the New Letters Award for Poetry. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Eileen lives in Portland, Oregon.
10/4 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Raina J. León / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
10/4 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Raina J. León and local poet Susannah Winters Simpson / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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