leaves like corn flakes spilled from a great cereal box in the sky
and spilling out across the floor of the world
to crunch between our toes and make us think of
home,
the days when Mother poured our cereal
or when we swept up the leaves into one great pile
and, strewn throughout our hair,
we all looked as though we were wearing crowns
little flower princesses with mamas who cleaned our milk spills from our blouses
and who chastised only mildly when our corn flakes splattered
all across the floor–
or when we, in our mischief,
jumped around in them.

Sarah Valeika is a poet whose works have been featured in Eunoia Review, Fem Fiction, Open Minds Quarterly, and other journals online and in print. She currently serves as the editor-in-chief of the Hippopotamus Literary Magazine at Yale University.