Youth Poet Award Finalist: “God’s Eye” by Evan Wang

God’s Eye

firm is the leaf, rounded like God’s eye,

​back arching for salvation.

wanting what sinners lack–nothing.

​blessed to be unassuming,

to reek of a corpse without a quiet coffin.

​that is the plant’s ultimatum,

rounding off green veins with a dying limb,

​never asking how it got there.

the pot moved itself and the roots only followed,

​marking the first migration which

made every leaf a stepping stone, a face

​in anguish, found refraction of light.

blame it on that or the autonomics, on the graveyard–

the greenhouse, where a stem rises

through a halo of broken pinkies, petrifying this portrait

of me, body turned outwards,

each limb wanting different love bruises. the gleaming

dust settles on my lashes like that afternoon

in a classroom of fresh-blooded him-s, catching

the eyes of golden boy, nail polish boy,

boy with the garden shear jaw, i want i want

​ i want it all, the means to sustain a pulse.

never let them know i want to overgrow, the shame of it.

just feed on the scabs i need–never grow from it.

don’t be hungry and don’t die. don’t be a sinner, learn

​how to set branches equal, or branch out

like those from the pot always do. spread your ribs,

be just as wild and as wanting, just as thirsty.  

for a plant, it is not so down to earth, ergo, I won’t be either.

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YOUTH POET AWARD FINALIST “God’s Eye”

王潇/Evan Wang is a young writer from Pennsylvania. His work has been published in Philadelphia Stories, National Poetry Quarterly, Juste Milieu, and elsewhere, as well as performed at the Our America Now festival. He is the 2022 recipient of the Youth Appreciation Award, awarded by Optimist International, and an alumnus of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. Evan is an Anaphora Fellow and a mentee of Peter LaBerge. His poem "God's Eye" illustrates the want and desire that both human and plants share.