Discipline
I want to be released and do not want to be released.
I watch the creatures of the garden extricate
themselves from—
just to be plaited back into—
the brittle lattice of the grass … the leaves that fell … now growing back.
I see the colors boil over on the branch,
in their budding sockets
first babylike and green, then nigh bright gold.
Spring is a ribbon that I have been fed.
I can see its red tail licking the ridge in my throat.
About Mazzy Sleep
Mazzy Sleep is a 14-year-old living in Iowa City. She has written two feature screenplays, four novels, and hundreds upon hundreds of poems and short stories. Her work has been published in Blackbird, The Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop), The Minnesota Review, Rattle, Barren Magazine, Literary Review of Canada, Geist, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. Mazzy was commissioned by the Lunar Codex project to write a poem that landed on the moon in February 2024 and March 2025. Her poem “Heart Medicine” was named a Notable Poem in the Best Canadian Poetry 2024 anthology. mazzysleep.com