“Heater Socks”

Poem by Megan Chan (12).

She wakes up squinting, moaning.

Dark hair splayed out on the pillow,

dainty branches

inky against the light of day.

Outside the window

the globed moon is no longer there.

Cold fog creeps down past the street;

the world masked in a sheet of gray.

She crawls out of bed—with great difficulty. 

On the heater radiating fervor 

waves she sees two socks carefully laid out for her,

being grilled on it’s torrid surface.

Their color, hues of sherbet:

white, fuchsia, sometimes sky blue,

bounce against the tawny walls and carpet in her hands, 

hot as a furnace.

On her feet the cotton is soft

like sand between her toes.

The warmth drifts up her spine only to withdraw: 

the ebb and flow of an azure tide.

Wind nips at the back of her neck

the school monochrome as dread slithers in.

But she looks down at her heater socks,

and balmy shades of paradise turn the anxiety

paper thin.