(This poem was awarded second place in the 2019 Walt Whitman Association Poetry Contest and was published in the Conversations newsletter)
my eyes are brown;
not brown like dirt,
but brown like the rich soil outside of my childhood home, which knows the grooves of my palms no matter how much they expand over the years;
not brown like mud,
but brown like the soles of my feet after running through the woods in the torrents, pitch black but for when the lightning throws everything into a stark white, like the world is taking a polaroid of us;
not brown like chocolate,
but brown like the little blocks my grandmother helps me break, her hands over mine, and drop into a pot with cream and sugar and vanilla extract that smells better than it tastes until it is baked into something;
not brown like wood,
but brown like the strong oak desk which is large and old and covered in stains from coffee mugs and candles and sunshine, first my fathers and now mine.
Eve Annajane Writes, LLC 