Finding My First Gray At Twenty
was as if I’d caught The Fates sneaking to snip my time
as if soft lightning had struck me addled
all the smoke from the final suck of American
Spirits emigrated north, just like they said
I was a spindle of nerves, a graveyard
of small bones cartoon skeletons strike drums with
I haven’t lived enough to begin plucking
the strings of an antique violin
I still find streaks of deodorant on my dark shirt
still wince against the foam lip of a fierce wave
suddenly I’m a tetherball
in my childhood yard, with the rose bush
the kudzu, the ghost of a crabapple tree, bracing
for action or perhaps
some sharp release
Julia Watson earned her. MFA from North Carolina State University. Her works have been published in The Shore, Voicemail Poems, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, among other journals. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina. You can read more of her work at juliawatsonwriter.com.
