ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Emma Zhang lives and writes in San Jose, California. A California Arts Scholar and Alliance of Young Artists and Writers National Best in Grade Winner, her writing has been recognized by the Pulitzer Center, the Adroit Prizes, the American Mathematical Society, the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest, and the Bay Area Creative Foundation, and appears in Kissing Dynamite, Peach Magazine, Vagabond City Lit, among others. Aside from writing, she enjoys earl gray lattes, Borges's short stories, math, and biology.
September 25, 2024
they never taught me how to re-enter a womb
after William Carlos Williams
unopened, my mother's soft flesh peeling at the ends
uneven, how nothing has ever tasted so sweet, so cold,
the umbilical cord a stairwell to (faux) heaven.
they told me i could have one life,
& i chose this one.
they told me meaning should be measured by the length of my breath,
their lungs trans(par/luc)ent.
in twenty years, no one will believe in angels
(but i will.)
& who am I?
this choking icebox
of stars
on the balcony, we eat plum after plum
without passion.
in the rain, they tell me this too
is an allegation:
to live with each breath open
to forgive, relive
without conclusion.
i sit & idolize motion
(hollow & alive), hands cold & folding
into horizons;
to forget,
assume disintegration.
these bodies born(e)
in dilation,
disillusion(ed),
we chose to live, we chose
to open ( )
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
