The Poem

At lunch, Leni opened up the note her father had packed with her sandwich, and it reminded her to ask her friends what their Halloween costumes would be. Charlotte said, 'Mine's a secret,' and because she had said it smiling proudly, the rest nodded and agreed that theirs were secrets too. So, as if to prove a point as if to prove the point that a costume is not made better by the surprise of it-Leni announced that she was going to be a poem for Halloween.

She arrived just as the sun had begun to set, and when her friends saw her, they giggled at her costume. One of them said

"That's not a poem!' so Leni asked, 'What is a poem then?' Charlotte, who was pretending to be breakfast and had pieces of cardboard pancakes and bacon stuck to her shirt, said, 'A poem should contain itself.' Then Jade, who was pretending to be a Parisian, waved her baguette around in one hand to help explain that, 'A poem should rhyme,' she paused, then added, 'Like Emily Dickinson.' And finally Rachel, who was dressed up as a priest, clasped her hands to her chest and said, 'And a poem should feel.

Then Leni, who felt that she truly was a poem, tilted her chin up so as to keep gravity from doing its work on the tears in her eyes. With her head still tilted, she marched outside. She kicked off her shoes, and muttered something about 'Not stopping for something,' and with her face bare and arms open, as if to prove a point, she walked into the street.

Then her friends, giggling once again, rushed out to find her senseless and silent, with her toes all over the ground.

Kavya Krishnamurthy