Photograph by Jens Kolk
When I was 9, I knew
that I was ugly. I did not
know how, but I knew.
I looked at my reflection
like a bonobo studies his teeth –
both boorish and fervid.
Today I know that I am beautiful.
Falling asleep to a cold rising dew,
I awake just to listen to the sound
of the milkweed drying in the breeze.
A sound reminding me.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, the Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Havana Times, the South China Morning Post, the Buffalo News, and more.