Poetry by Micah Wingard
Micah Wingard is a South Carolina-based emerging writer with a BA in English and an MA in Communication. She works in an academic library, where she spends her days in close proximity to scholarship, curiosity, and the many ways people search for and shape meaning through research. Outside of writing and library work, she maintains a growing Twilight Saga collection and an ongoing appreciation for “y’all,” which she considers the most beautiful word in the English language. This is her first publication.
Fig Season
the summer that I lived
in that tiny asbestos coated rickety house
in the backwoods of leesville, I had no choice
but to spend every waking moment outside, usually with molly—
my closest cousin and comrade.
we'd ride our bikes all day
like the goddamn tour de france
or make potions with rain water or
whatever the hell
it is that kids get up to all day.
then in between the
scraped knees and sunshine,
when our throats were so raw and parched, we'd drag our soft little bodies
over to a fig tree
our great grandpa planted
near a shed some 100 years ago
and devour.
nothing tastes as holy as
an ancient fruit under the scorching
summer sun. that tree stopped producing fruit
once I reached adulthood
(it's funny how life makes
its own metaphors like that)
and we got the hell out of dodge anyhow.
but every late summer,
my heart does a little leap
and I overpay for a box of figs
in a grocery store, just to play
a thieving god who steals
a taste of childhood with every bite.
Palmetto Heat Index
it is mid-july and it is hot.
my fingers grab onto any makeshift fan—
ferry tickets, menus, a sturdy looking
plastic bag. the temperature
in my apartment reaches 80°,
and I pad around in a big t-shirt,
pulling damp fabric from breast and armpit.
this heat melts you,
turns you into something soft.
can’t do anything besides lie
here feeling so vulnerable.
in a few weeks, I’ll mold
myself back together into something
more sturdy, more pretty, more lovable.
but for right now,
it is mid-july and it is hot.