Claire Champommier, Portland, Oregon, USA
I felt where I have been before while visiting
my family in that small town that shaped my spine
like those manipulated trees
made into bridges. Do they wish for new beginnings?
I do, not for my faults, but so I could know
where to be and where not to be
when my body’s clock decided it was time to replace
my young parts. Could you believe I was here?
Do we say we know the bent trees don’t feel
so we can cross rivers? Could I accept I am a light?
Some days, I don’t want to hear it.
My leaves take it in either way.
I just want to feel it. I have been shaped
over a river, grown to love the movement
of rebirth like the freeway bridge by my home.
Rivers hold light differently. See it on its surface.
I ask if they dug its course too. Oh girl,
what keeps your chin up? Your branches?
Dear bent tree, I know my roots too.
I am the same converted light even when I am transported,
even when the soil is a void—
I reach past my fingertips and have hope
for a rainbow to remind me
how brilliantly we can bend light.
Claire “Champagne” Champommier is a proud lesbian Asian American creative. Currently a student, she has studied writing at Lewis & Clark College, where her professor, Mary Szybist, has encouraged her to keep doing so. Her work has appeared in Interim, Otis Nebula, SPLASH! from Haunted Waters Press, Fleas on the Dog, Feels Blind Literary, and Auroras & Blossoms.She is the San Franciscan winner for smART Magazine’s poetry competition.