by Jieyan Wang
in summer, your country falls & you’re left
with nothing but koi fish & sunlit insomnia
miluo: the quietest tributary, the off-cut you
cast yourself into, ripples expanding into rhymes
one day you wake & find yourself in the
kingdom of sons. the sons tell you instead of names
we count people by the rice grains we’ve swallowed. eat
as little as you can. your body is already defined
by water. a mother, not yours, calls i’m going to sing
for your slow breaths. reply yes even though there’s
no question mark. your body: it’s always bluing
begin with: i greet sorrow & its unopened flower bud
a boat, creaking with dreamlessness, cuts the current
end with: i slip away with my heart in between my fingers
Jieyan Wang is a first-year college student at Harvard University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pleiades, Passages North, Baltimore Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, among other publications. She is also a reader for The Adroit Journal.
