- Esther Kim
War on our tongues, 1953

We swallowed
dandelions on the hill
behind our temple, drowned
in prayer. Amen—passed down
to every rustic province
in the south, spoon-fed
to you, children formed
from surplus rebellions
and taproots—we used
to own the tilted mountains
of the north, now graveyards
for the relatives we were tricked into
sending down the Yalu River.
This news of death we gnaw on
to feel less god-
forsaken when the war is
half-won, half-home. When
the sky resembles
smoke, we set an extra bowl
at the table, one for the cry
lost to us. We watch
the scallions circle
in the untouched soup,
and bow over a handmade sign:
look for me—age 9—boy, pray
as if we are still caught
in a field of wasted brothers.

Esther Kim is a high school senior from Potomac, Maryland. Her poetry is forthcoming or published in Diode, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Half Mystic. In the summer of 2019, she participated in the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. A National Student Poet Semifinalist, she has been recognized by the Library of Congress, the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as a National Gold Medalist, The Atlantic, and the Poetry Society of the UK. When she's not writing, she can be found taking long walks or listening to a podcast.

Vicky Wang is a high school junior from Jericho, New York. She is loves photography, programming, engineering, and music. Her passion for engineering and love for designing has qualified her and her robotics team a chance to compete at the VEX Robotics state competition amongst fifty other teams, early 2020. Photography is her creative outlet and it allows her to freely express herself and capture the beauty of the world through a lens. When she is not creating, Vicky loves playing badminton, baking, and watching cute dog videos at 3am in the morning.