LETTER ON PROTECTING

I was a frost-kissed doe     ear pressed up
against tundra-cold glass

Past the quiet skyline
I discovered you

our voices mingled     tinkling jingles
of an ice cream truck

I am learning that you are the reason
willows grow close to the water

Fragile branches swoon to your music
all craning their necks to see if you would brush

your hand over     swaying fingers as if
I had already memorized the pattern

LONG-TERM MEMORY

Inside the curled newborn deerling lies a pear tree,
too lonely to bloom in winter and too shy in the summer.
The inside of my elbow beckons my
grandma over to show her the beaming pastel fruit.
It is her favorite part of the day because the pear green
reminds her of her fig trees which remind her
of the apron her mother wore on Tuesdays.
Under the posed trees, she daydreams, crystal
thoughts refracting off strawberry seeds. The sunrise
is misty but slow—polygon rays slip out
of the sandy clouds and wake the earth earlier
than it likes. She looks mystical in the slanted light.

Kaitlyn Cheng is a Chinese-American poet who grew up in Northern Virginia. She is currently a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Virginia studying Cognitive Science and Poetry. Her most recent work centers around the act of trying to preserve people and things, and the lengths one would go to in order hold memory in its purest, untarnished form.