"Childhood II: Northern Lights" by Lake Angela

When the apples in the bed began to decay, 

they rolled and tumbled like children. Yellow 

and red, the luster increased with my reverence. 

When the fruits decay, I must leave you again. 

Back to the world made for the dead. It was 

a good effigy you saw, he said. In the Northland, 

I depart to search for Lake and stumble upon a training 

for corpses in the cold, where everyone stays solid. 

When I was a little girl, I just did not know how 

to comfort her; the death of a river 

is no dark matter.

Lake Angela is a poet, translator, choreographer, and 2024-25 Poet Laureate of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her latest book is Scivias Choreomaniae (Spuyten Duyvil, 2024), or “Know the Ways of the Dancing Madness,” a poetry collection based on her work as a Mad dance therapist at a state psychiatric hospital for others on the schizophrenia spectrum.