ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Natalie Wee is a queer Peranakan community-builder. She has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology. Born in Singapore to Malaysian parents, she is currently a settler in Tkaronto (Toronto).
White Men Call You a Dirty Immigrant but Comic Books Call You Vagabond
— after Ocean Vuong
The first & most
complex alchemy
you learned is
a horizon made
heaven by
standing under
-neath it. The sky
is only blue
splintered by
telephone wire
into light that
touches water
as if hands
to fill with mercy.
Your father
taught you this.
Even now you
watch him ascend
outcropping rock,
his shoulders
encased in
discount denim
from a NZ thrift
shop, decades
before you
were born.
His fist warms
a silver band,
which is all that
tethers him to
an exit. Just out
of sight, everyone
he loves exhales
the future.
He thinks they
call this pier
after the act
of watching
flood turn
family
into relative
intervals.
You’ve been
12 hours away
for 2 years.
Your father’s
shadow
measured
in footsteps.
The faded denim
you wear
to remember.
You know
horizons foam
the same
distance
no matter
where you stand.
You are always
missing your
family. You are
always missing
your family.
You wear your
father's pelt
& bequeath your
mother's hair
to every place
you were alive.
Some nights
you forget
your pillow is
not her hand.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
