by Kai Holmwood
Look at the pictures of us as kids
“innocent,” they called us,
as they told us to smile
and promised the world would be ours
Look at the bared teeth in those pictures
as if we were already feral
as if somehow, even then,
we knew
Look at the promises sprawling before us:
summers promising record heat
winters promising inadequate rain
someone promising to profit off it all
They told us to smile, but we—
we were learning to bare our teeth
Kai Holmwood has an M.A. in Writing from the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand and was awarded the H. W. Hill Prize at UC Berkeley. She lives in rural Portugal with her Brazilian husband and two giant mastiffs they accidentally adopted.