Sun showers at a bagel shop
I never had a word for it
because I never saw it:
blinding sun and gentle rain--
simultaneous serenade
of Earth’s fiery temper
and her oceanic humanity.
But here, as his face oscillates
between light and shadow
from across the table, I understand--
for this, I’ll take the rain.
The Bridge
There’s a photo of me at five,
porcelain skin and awkward smile,
gaping at the Golden Gate.
I marveled at the massive pillars
but wondered why one might need a bridge
if you could swim.
At twenty, I stand three feet taller
with the same self-conscious smile
and I wonder if San Francisco was meant
to be an island, if the bridge
that stood as a ledge
between two lands did more harm
than good. Every day,
men make their way up the ruby rivets
and leap to a land where I wish to be,
so beautiful and bleak.
Christian Paulisich is a 20-year-old aspiring poet studying Psychology and Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He is from the East Bay where his parents, two sisters, and grandparents still live. He enjoys traveling, being outdoors, cooking, reading and writing poetry and historical fiction novels, and spends time researching child psychology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is currently unpublished.
I never had a word for it
because I never saw it:
blinding sun and gentle rain--
simultaneous serenade
of Earth’s fiery temper
and her oceanic humanity.
But here, as his face oscillates
between light and shadow
from across the table, I understand--
for this, I’ll take the rain.
The Bridge
There’s a photo of me at five,
porcelain skin and awkward smile,
gaping at the Golden Gate.
I marveled at the massive pillars
but wondered why one might need a bridge
if you could swim.
At twenty, I stand three feet taller
with the same self-conscious smile
and I wonder if San Francisco was meant
to be an island, if the bridge
that stood as a ledge
between two lands did more harm
than good. Every day,
men make their way up the ruby rivets
and leap to a land where I wish to be,
so beautiful and bleak.
Christian Paulisich is a 20-year-old aspiring poet studying Psychology and Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He is from the East Bay where his parents, two sisters, and grandparents still live. He enjoys traveling, being outdoors, cooking, reading and writing poetry and historical fiction novels, and spends time researching child psychology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is currently unpublished.