Poetry
good/bye
by Ana Chen
rusted glasses/i don’t know when i
broke them/how many loaves have my shoes
worn thin how many breaths worn unreadable i
can kiss you/sometimes when that monochrome sign reads
open/other times i wait rewind my callused fingers/i’ve chewed
you over one time too many/color is
gaudy but have you considered
the fizzy sweetness of distrust the kind that comes in/
bottled gold eyes/gristle is
inevitable when it comes to hickeys/whipped cream is a
balancing act/i grind faded plaids between my fingers pray
before baby hairs for a salvation for
a return/any shade would be a blessing when considering
a desert funeral/coffins sundried beneath my mother’s
brooding thighs/nested children blind and ugly and
parched/they are also called
the unknowing/i like to say i carve the gutters but in reality they
are just my arteries and i/can fit the rest of me up them/savor the innocence
in purple rice the undigested
kernels
/
regrets.
iou nothing.
come at me you/husk of a kiss/i know before i touch you that
you will blow away and i in my butterfly
surprise will smell only mama’s cooking/olive oil haven/okra breath
of relief/this watermelon/deadweight finality:
glorious.
by Ana Chen
the organ gargles in my dream where
all the men are underwater and a mermaid beheads them
one by one.
we are at a wedding and i am studying
the apoptosis of vanilla, godiva pearls menstruating
into basement salt.
in these mercurial tides the benthos is glass. leaves
with screen-door eyes, teeth hard shards
of the unwanted. my lips are chapped red.
the shrimp and my moods cuddle in
the crevasses of my nails. my hands weather white
but only in the brine of my knuckles.
i consider the concept of one. a head
floats past. broad nose spilling into sandstone jaw: bow tie bouquet
of so many arteries.
the mermaid swims to me and i try to tell her she is beautiful,
cerulean scars bubbling over her breasts. yes, she tells me, i know. and
with the tender brush of a mother, she shreds the veins
from my neck.
By Crimson Athena
I can succumb and
Drown in this riptide
Of morphine madness,
Or just lie back against
My spit-spackled pillow
And revel in my love for
You.
I say,
Love conquers pain.
Love conquers fear.
Love conquers all.
by Trang Le
Chisel out oblong slits for this oblong face.
Splatter me in yellow.
Hang me. Dry me.
They’ll know my name.
by Trang Le
yellow girl
be loud in your songs
strum those beats that
make your heart soar
stomp those feet for
they’ll carry you far
by Linh Tran
Shed all those frivolous dreams and wants,
There’s no space for them here.
No matter that it is all you know,
Possibly all you care about.
But this jumble of words and colors, stop trying to explain them,
Just everything tossed together, no one can understand it.
It’s simply unbecoming.
What are you saying,
I don’t know how you expect me to love it.
For a second, I don’t even know if I can love you
Because of all this, so different from what I expected
How did you stray so far as to create these, these things?
But dear, this is just a bad phase, right?
To be forgotten and never revisited
I’ll help you find the path again.
Look, on the blank canvas left,
We’ll form colors and lines
Shaped into a picture that anyone can understand
Something practical, reasonable, wipe away those tears.
Wouldn’t that be so much better
And as you smile, walking up the stage
Hands gripping a diploma, stellar future ahead
Only then can I love you.