Two Poems
Jessica Scheier
Narnia
We crouch on the front porch steps.
A canvas of green and brown before us,
The sound of cicadas rattles our eardrums.
Beads of sweat meander down our faces.
You whittle a stick with a kitchen knife,
While I tense at the worst-case scenario.
The finished product a curved stick with notches,
The string I scavenge from a drawer taut around both ends.
Satisfaction and pride short-lived when tension breaks our bow.
We flee to the tree that splits in two,
Our portal to the other world.
My fingers run over rough flakes of tree bark,
Heads peer through to see no change.
We slash through foliage to reach the creek,
Your obnoxious basketball shorts catch on thorns.
Sunlight filters through the tall trees,
Delicate designs etch into our skin.
Water trickles lightly down a scale of rocks.
The stillness of the vast pool,
The illusion of shallowness at the edge,
I follow your downward gaze.
The reflection in the water reveals your intentions.
“There’s a dropoff.”
First step, your moment of invincibility.
Second step, your moment of smugness.
Third step, your moment of downfall.
I laugh as the water swallows you halfway,
Our hands clasp to steady you.
“I told you.”
For You
I chased you down the creaky staircase, and we merged together with your siblings and became one–our only goal: the wide open fields, the animals, and the freedom that called us.
This is for all the times we lazily laid down on hay, playing with kittens your stray had recently birthed, and jumped across towering haystacks as tall as the sky, with straw stabbing and poking through our clothes.
This is for all the pillow and water balloon fights, the football games, and manhunts; our laughs radiated innocence, the only concern family staying together, me recently adopted for two weeks.
This is for your family I was enthralled by—buzzing, daily dinners at the kitchen table, and heartwarming breakfasts where your father ruffled my hair like I was his own daughter.
This is for the nights all five of us would sleep together on the floor, accompanied by fluffy thick blankets and pillows, the television static soothing our senses.
This is for the nights we would watch you play a racing game, your face buried in the screen, your hands void of tension and full of mischief as you drove backwards on the track–I remember our laughs meshing together, two wavelengths aligned.
This is for the night you fell asleep first, and we painted your nails pink and black, incessant giggles held back by our rib cages; you woke up the next morning laughing with us, feigning anger.
This is for you on that burning sunny day, we ran to guide the ambulance and police officers towards you, who were surrounded by unyielding metal, with your sister begging and your brother keeling over.
This is for you a couple of weeks later, we released blue and purple everywhere in the sky, hoping you would remember your favorite colors.
Jessica Scheier is from Frenchtown, NJ. She graduated from SAS in 2025 with a major in computer science and a minor in critical intelligence studies. She’s excited to explore her creative side more in the future through writing and crocheting.