Kory Kennedy

Portrait
​Talitha Cumi

My name is Kory Kennedy and I am a senior here at OSU studying English. I was born in Plano, TX, but grew up just outside of Ardmore, OK.  Growing up, all of my energy was put into becoming an  athlete, but somehow I ended up becoming a poet. Poetically, my greatest inspiration is the work of Anis Mojgani, whose poetry puts life into words in a way that speak to me so loudly.

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Portrait

     KORY KENNEDY
 

She was born in a garden scraped
from the spaces between ribs and dust.
Her body was more canvas than skin
with the hues of a sunset swirling
together like a watercolor painting.
She held herself together like linen
sheets drying on a clothesline.
At age eight she traded her vocal cords
for guitar strings and words for harmonies.
Brown hair ran down her back
like words on a book spine.
She referred to her scars by the
page number on which they occurred.
 
I stayed with her for a week once.
She made coffee every morning
so early that the sun rose
ahead of schedule to watch her through the window.
She played classical records as we ate
and spoke of California and Colorado.
The smell from the kitchen and the sounds
of the music met in the air above our
heads and kissed.
We sat on her beach of a couch
and dipped our feet in the ocean of
sunlight splashing in from behind us
onto the wood floors.
 
That is how I remember her.

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Talitha Cumi

     KORY KENNEDY
 

My sister speaks in silver leaves and sunsets.
Her words form like clouds over the ocean.
When we were young, I would fall asleep as she spoke
so she would fold her words up and tear them into
bits of gold and sprinkle them into my hands.
Her bedroom was a field of giant teal flowers.
 
She would disappear in her forest for weeks.
 
When she came back
she would sing galaxies to me.
At night, we sat amongst her stars and smiled.
 
She spoke in riddles to the rest of the world.
My parents forced her to communicate in copper and nickel
so that they could understand.
 
During the summer, we slept beneath the
universe on the trampoline.
I ran my fingers through her hair as she slept
and pressed my dream-stained hand
against the pages of my notebook.
Those nights she slept like an ice age.
 
In the winter, we grew old
and shared stories over cups of coffee.
Her warm breath spoke ghosts into the air
and they danced for us.
Everything danced for us,
and we held everything close and danced too.