Red-tailed Hawks

Ari Watkins, United States

on the road west we slept on the roofs

of stucco houses. one big white sheet like angel wings.

it never dipped too low in the nighttime, not back then. It was perfect

the whole world was perfect and we threw ourselves at it, running and

screaming and it always caught us.

we were two girls and we wanted everything.

we were two girls and we ran and ran like two dogs

searching for liquor stores and prayer flags and golden toilets.

we met years ago. there’s a bond like iron between strange little girls, like we used to be

with something sad and wrong inside us

we would stand outside in the dark barefoot on the wet grass

staring at the house where the lights were on and everyone was alive.

but then we went west. and we made fun of nevada and it was an age of gold and silver

and you untied all the horses so they could run on the beach and we ran too

from the angry horse owner and we laughed for years.

i’d never seen so many hawks in my life natalie. we were two hawks circling

the deep blue sky and you wanted to learn to play guitar because you thought

it would make you cool. natalie i love you still with your red lipstick and your divination.

we got to the desert and it was so hot we thought we might die,

dry nothing for miles. we got to the desert and you

kicked the backs of my knees so i fell kneeling in the dirt.

you said pray. pray.

so i did. to the horses and the little red gods

and we held each other’s hands in the red dirt and we asked to be girls forever

Ari Watkins is a sixteen-year-old emerging author from Brooklyn, New York. They are a graduate of the Reynold's Young Writers program at Denison University. Their poem 'red-tailed hawks' won first place in the 2023 Ned Vizzini Teen Writing Contest and was published in the Brooklyn Public Library's Teen Writing Journal. When not writing, they are ranting to their friends about the importance of love or how life is better with the windows open.