ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Margaret Zhang used to go by Mar-gar-gar. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Glass Kite Anthology and has attended writing workshops at the Iowa Young Writers' Studio and the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, among others. Read her work in SOFTBLOW, DIALOGIST, Gigantic Sequins, Words Dance, The Foyle Young Poets Anthology, and other journals. Next year, she plans to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where she will continue to appreciate memes.
Latitude
The night rinses out the cotton. We take
small steps towards the skyline & still end up
at the door to your room. Still. Your mother
is still home. No, the night would be
nothing without its mother's fragrance.
Which side of your room screams nirvana
is hard to say. Inside the mouth, my cheeks
always swelled from the smoke as I watched
you undress. I would go home
with rashes on my cheeks — so flaky & wine-red
that smolder might as well have been spilling
from my blush. My father thought I was
drinking & I let him believe it, even though watered down
licorice was the only taste my tongue knew. I had no
other explanation. Alviso does not know
viscosity. How childish the lava lamp
beside your bed made me feel. How puckish the purple
liquid as it orbited through the neck
of the lamp. & how we'd slumped
against the swings years ago, mock pilot licenses
in our jeans. Even our bruised & splintered thighs
we called flight. Outside the mouth, your mother
& uncle would roam like mannequins
on wheels. Their eyes did not follow me when I was expelled
from the mouth. They did not mind the stranger
in their house. Perhaps I was the mannequin.
The sky clenches like a fist & stamps
the last of its ink onto the graying pavement. &
the night rinses out the horizon until it is shrunken
& pale. It rinses out the song. It rinses out
the room & all it has ever held.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
