Bleeding Tomatoes: A Golden Shovel

Amber Zou | Poetry

I am minimal but specific in what I ask for, and as 

such, many see me as unfriendly 

but see the broody silkie hen who sits as 

quietly as the eggs she rests atop, merely warming a 

bed of eggs that will never hatch? She is unlike soft tomatoes 

which spill expected red at spicular touch, but instead she is grit guzzling and egg-expecting, giving

mercy 

to her silent kin, always waiting, to 

cradle them underneath the chin 

of her haunches. She is me, and I, her, foolishly strong & awaiting always waiting &

do you see now why I dream of having one silkie chicken (that bares white shirtfront)?

Amber Zou is a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy originally from Houston, Texas. She is an alumna of Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Kenyon Young Writers’ Workshop, and Sewanee Young Writers' Conference. She has received recognition for her poems and prose through National and Regional Scholastic Writing Awards, Phillips Exeter prizes, Phillips Exeter publications (Pendulum Magazine, WeVision Magazine, Asian Mag), and has pieces appearing in The Stirling Review, XinSai Magazine, and the Kenyon Young Writers’ Anthology, among others. She is a lover of lowercase letters, her goldendoodle, Mae and tortoise-shelled cat, Miso, and Mystic Mango kombucha.