elegy
by Helli Fang
I.
veins dripping with the shock
of release. on a hot midmorning
i dream of your body, split open
like walnut shells, beneath lights
that simmer but never burn. i am a
moth trapped inside a prism, tarot
huffing prayers at dark. the knife
in your planter carves calluses
from winter, bloodless safety in white.
my capillaries, trapped in a mirror.
II.
a man is a copper-toothed tiger
if she first learns to be a coward, to
chase her glories down with a shot
of halved apologies, a root
tucked in her gums like hands
that have left a cello unstrung. slot
machines pop their lips, wishing
they could eat the moon. beneath
a glass castle i find a closed mouth--
the symmetry of silence—saying,
III.
don’t. this is the flight of a clipped owl
birthed in the throat of soot and dust
who somehow has learned to love the
sky. in palo alto we lick pear juice
off our wrists while stanford tells us
this is where great stories begin. i
am swallowed in a washing cycle of
a thousand paper birds and the theft
of radiation, loose bolts waltzing
in an open clavicle—i won’t.
veins dripping with the shock
of release. on a hot midmorning
i dream of your body, split open
like walnut shells, beneath lights
that simmer but never burn. i am a
moth trapped inside a prism, tarot
huffing prayers at dark. the knife
in your planter carves calluses
from winter, bloodless safety in white.
my capillaries, trapped in a mirror.
II.
a man is a copper-toothed tiger
if she first learns to be a coward, to
chase her glories down with a shot
of halved apologies, a root
tucked in her gums like hands
that have left a cello unstrung. slot
machines pop their lips, wishing
they could eat the moon. beneath
a glass castle i find a closed mouth--
the symmetry of silence—saying,
III.
don’t. this is the flight of a clipped owl
birthed in the throat of soot and dust
who somehow has learned to love the
sky. in palo alto we lick pear juice
off our wrists while stanford tells us
this is where great stories begin. i
am swallowed in a washing cycle of
a thousand paper birds and the theft
of radiation, loose bolts waltzing
in an open clavicle—i won’t.
Caesura
by Helli Fang
I sold my tongue
the forest fire, its veins
still dipped in mercury. You
spill into a spineless leaf.
I sift haloes of light,
dance the beat of col legno--
an introduction to Mars--
to remind us that silence
must precede war.
In time, I learned to eat the quiet.
It leapt at me like a tide
as I shaved my throat
to let its fist break through.
Tossed into the lake
limbless. My words split not
because they are lost, but because they
do not want to be heard.
I shut the door and
hands close in
like a ribcage. The smell of chaos
burns a mouth into my sleeve. This
ambiance
you speak of has never
palmed the liquor in my
breast: a clothesline of tendencies.
My mother hangs a bird
by its beak.
Here, I am eighteen and living in
the desert. Mother finds me through
an amaryllis, asks me what I want to
be. I say I want to be
silent. To write in a place
where the only language is in
the hours. She says: it is easier
to relive the moments when we
were unafraid. I say
this is not true.
My body is composed of fear, each
tendon a glass eye. I devour
the quiet because I
have tasted nothing else.
the forest fire, its veins
still dipped in mercury. You
spill into a spineless leaf.
I sift haloes of light,
dance the beat of col legno--
an introduction to Mars--
to remind us that silence
must precede war.
In time, I learned to eat the quiet.
It leapt at me like a tide
as I shaved my throat
to let its fist break through.
Tossed into the lake
limbless. My words split not
because they are lost, but because they
do not want to be heard.
I shut the door and
hands close in
like a ribcage. The smell of chaos
burns a mouth into my sleeve. This
ambiance
you speak of has never
palmed the liquor in my
breast: a clothesline of tendencies.
My mother hangs a bird
by its beak.
Here, I am eighteen and living in
the desert. Mother finds me through
an amaryllis, asks me what I want to
be. I say I want to be
silent. To write in a place
where the only language is in
the hours. She says: it is easier
to relive the moments when we
were unafraid. I say
this is not true.
My body is composed of fear, each
tendon a glass eye. I devour
the quiet because I
have tasted nothing else.
Glass Familia
by Helli Fang
I.
How every dream begins: a swollen ear
sprouting hyacinths.
My father lying face-down in the
elevator, hangnails unstrung like a peg
box, waiting for the dog to snip them
with her teeth. My mother’s body
buried beneath the century,
lodging knuckles into a cheek.
II.
I gave her the shell of a fish’s eye
and she spat clay at my feet.
The children stand stuffed with mints
that fill her mouth as they bow.
III.
I try and remember her as a
bird: the slip of yellow feet on tile,
peeled-open seaweed packets, a bayou
decomposing inside a fist.
IV.
My sister mends an apology from sea glass:
I bite it with the shock of dissonance,
its weight stunned in my teeth. The
ceiling planter tips over like salt.
She tries to swallow everything at once,
pausing only to plumb grease from her pores.
A renaissance tattooed to her lips.
Ties me to the garden and strips me
to my socks; says,
There is never tragedy
without nobility
V.
I can’t learn to breathe with pythons
for bones, an exhaust pipe singing
its daily devotions. Still,
no one has died except me.
My father calls himself a broken empire,
waiting for protest,
but the doors have already churned shut.
How every dream begins: a swollen ear
sprouting hyacinths.
My father lying face-down in the
elevator, hangnails unstrung like a peg
box, waiting for the dog to snip them
with her teeth. My mother’s body
buried beneath the century,
lodging knuckles into a cheek.
II.
I gave her the shell of a fish’s eye
and she spat clay at my feet.
The children stand stuffed with mints
that fill her mouth as they bow.
III.
I try and remember her as a
bird: the slip of yellow feet on tile,
peeled-open seaweed packets, a bayou
decomposing inside a fist.
IV.
My sister mends an apology from sea glass:
I bite it with the shock of dissonance,
its weight stunned in my teeth. The
ceiling planter tips over like salt.
She tries to swallow everything at once,
pausing only to plumb grease from her pores.
A renaissance tattooed to her lips.
Ties me to the garden and strips me
to my socks; says,
There is never tragedy
without nobility
V.
I can’t learn to breathe with pythons
for bones, an exhaust pipe singing
its daily devotions. Still,
no one has died except me.
My father calls himself a broken empire,
waiting for protest,
but the doors have already churned shut.