A Poem by Kari Villanueva

My thoughts carve me hollow like a stream
against limestone. West coast valleys between
my breasts, a highway of mountains down
my spine. There’s a grand canyon forming
in my mind, water licks grains of sand.

It’s persistent, it’s slow like the rain that
gently knocks against my window pane– don’t
ask me when I opened it, but there’s mold on my
walls and beetles in the carpet. I wonder how
Noah liked the rain. Droplets plink the glass

like a broken piano, ivory yellowed and ebony
chipped. I want to love its song like a pianist. I
want to love the world like a doe loves its fawn–
unconditional. I shut the window.

Kari Villanueva is an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh studying English Writing and Public and Professional Writing. Kari has been published once before in Forbes and Fifth Magazine.