Definitely a cool collection.
Love the artwork by Jess X. Chen in this volume of poetry
Love the artwork by Jess X. Chen in this volume of poetry
"In the magazine, the only woman / I could possibly be / is spilling from the conqueror‘s // ropy arms. Her lightless eyes / will not let me sleep: // *Be the prize slung over his shoulder, / an open bar of middle-shelf kink.*"
-"Orientalism (Part II)"
"Everyone loves / a dead girl. // Everyone drools when the virgin falls / into the gnarled jaws / of the earth – red mouth cut slack, / eyes empty. Everyone wants / a broken-glass girl, / bought second hand./ Look. The damage / was already there."
-"Bird Watching"
"When he laughs at the texture of your sadness, / turn away from his mouth, no matter how soft."
-"How to Win an Argument"
"If the stars have, as they say, been dead for millions of years by the time their light reaches us, then it follows that my retinas are a truer thing to call sky."
-"Notes on the Existence of Ghosts"
“like the ocean, having been the ocean
long before we arrived, each wave
newborn and buried at once; like us,
standing breathless at the edge,
astonished by our own lungs.” #poetry