West Trestle Review
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
    • January 2023
    • November 2022
    • September 2022
    • July 2022
    • May 2022
    • March 2022
    • January 2022
    • November 2021
    • September 2021
    • July 2021
    • May 2021
    • March 2021
    • January 2021
    • November 2020
    • September 2020
    • July 2020
  • Cross-Ties
  • Silver Tongue Saturdays
  • About
    • Arrivals & Departures
    • Masthead
    • Submit
    • Join Our Team
    • Archive >
      • Jane Beal
      • Beverly Burch
      • Kathleen Gunton
      • Connie Gutowsky
      • Priscilla Lee
      • Irene Lipshin
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
    • January 2023
    • November 2022
    • September 2022
    • July 2022
    • May 2022
    • March 2022
    • January 2022
    • November 2021
    • September 2021
    • July 2021
    • May 2021
    • March 2021
    • January 2021
    • November 2020
    • September 2020
    • July 2020
  • Cross-Ties
  • Silver Tongue Saturdays
  • About
    • Arrivals & Departures
    • Masthead
    • Submit
    • Join Our Team
    • Archive >
      • Jane Beal
      • Beverly Burch
      • Kathleen Gunton
      • Connie Gutowsky
      • Priscilla Lee
      • Irene Lipshin
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

sabrina guo

Kyoto

Crimson lanterns
            lit the cloudy skies.

            Some women wore
kimonos. Men tucked

 strands of hair
            behind their maidens’ ears.

            A star’s twinkle,
a careful gesture.

Everyone makes a wish.
            My shooting star was purple.

Alone, 

I had no wish,
everything I desired

was within reach.
            At this summer festival

            I came to help
my son sell
            homemade sake.

            He steamed the rice for one
and a half hours in the kitchen.

I slide down the hill,
            the silk laces
of my kimono

tearing after each twig.
            I could feel a cool mist
silenced by a growing moon.

I walk to the back of the festival,
            to a lonely

            stone well.
I pull the rope of the well 

down, panting for
            the red lit water.

            Blinded by
the dazzling hairpins

of daughters
            under the full moon,
the glass flowers      
     
blessed
            by its light.

            The moon
like a chestnut

waiting for a squirrel
            to crack it, brown

            dust of prosperity
showering over
             every couple. 

            The sweet and sour
scent of fried fish,

stabbed
            with wooden picks.

            Takoyaki
flipped over a pan,

fried milk,
            rich and creamy insides,

a golden coating— 

            the kind that makes
my throat itch. 

Konpeitō wrappers
            and fresh caramels

            littering the ground,
melting from the heat

of bodies pressed
            against each other. 
​
               The moon
peeling itself
       
with the relief
            her children are safe.

Woman with purple bob and glasses wearing a t-shirt that reads,
Sabrina Guo is from New York. She is the youngest global winner of the 2021 Poems to Solve the Climate Crisis Challenge, with a performance in the UN Climate Change Conference, UK 2021.  She is the recipient of the Civic Expression Award and a nine-time National Medalist from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her writing has been featured in the Best Teen Writing, Counterclock, The Poetry Society of UK, and Polyphony Lit, among others. She is the founder of Long Island Laboring Against COVID-19 and Girl Pride International, organizations featured by Disney for its 2021 “Use Your Voice” social initiative.

Art: For Anthony Bourdain, oil on canvas, Rebecca Pyle
  
Powered by Women