Black Cherry | Tessa Speicher

The summer I was lost,

my grandmother gave me

black cherry ice cream

always two scoops,

every night, and we’d sit on the porch

in the waning summer heat,

rocking and talking

until the world caught up

and twilight settled.

I don’t remember mosquitos,

but I remember the fireflies.

They don’t live in California,

so every one was a marvel,

magic you could chase, catch,

that crawled on your hand,

glowing through the cracks in your fingers,

Look, I’d demand,

and she would, every single time,

until I was found.

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Tessa Speicher is an engineer by day, writer by night. She was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in rural Pennsylvania. Her writing likes to tangle these strange combinations. She was recently published in the 2024 PA Bards Eastern Review and was a semi-finalist in the Philadelphia Stories' National Prize in Poetry.