Origami Wishes


Origami Wishes

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

1st Place - 2016 ESME Showcase Writing Poetry Awards


Origami wishes

I’m just fine right here,

being the single mother who

hangs a pale green Spanish shawl

in the kitchen window, roses in the lace.


Here with gratitude for hands,

some of which loved me well,

others that wished to

but hesitated

as if my body were foreign soil;

the hands that will one day

find their way here and

be just fine with all of it–

the child who shares my bed,

the chaos a day can turn out,

my simplistic cooking.


Today when I made my bed I arranged

the old aqua wool blanket on top

like an origami shape, peaks and folds:


Here is where I expect you to land,

on top this wool paper airplane.


Your hand will curl around the old

brass knob, its ornate design.


The weight of that wish, in my hand,

cannot be measured.


Akesha Baron has wanted to be a writer since the third grade, and began writing poetry at age 11. She currently resides in her hometown of Seattle with her seven-year-old daughter. She writes poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir, and is a self-taught visual artist. She is a psychotherapist/Jungian analyst in training, and also a student of Aikido and Zen, all of which emphasize authentic self-expression. She always managed to live with strong healer women during her fieldwork in graduate school in anthropology and linguistics, and wonders how to make her life a shrine to that archetype.


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