Caitie L. Young
Caitie L. Young (they/them) is a poet and writer from Kent, Ohio. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in new words {press}, The Atlanta Review, The Sonora Review, The Minnesota Review, Passengers Journal, and elsewhere. They were the first-place recipient of the 2022 Foothill Editors Prize for best graduate student poetry, and they are a pushcart nominee. Caitie is an MFA candidate in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts program and teaching workshops as the Wick Poetry Center Graduate Teaching Artist.​



​HEIRLOOM

with skin so frail it will  split and spill
like blood from child’s  knees
  like from my mother
      who always told me
she does not have a green thumb
who says every seed planted at her
hand has died
        my mother who always asks me
if i will have children      and i    consider
    the tomato
     the earthy      swirl of juices
behind   tight     red skin, exposed to     pest
    the hand, and age,   hanging ripe on the
    vine in the height   of summer
my mother says      i will change my mind
i close my eyes and see red scales and
  wrinkled tomato skin babies and tiny oval seeds
a simple God   in juices     so frail and wrinkled
 i cannot taste the heirloom.
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