ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Stephanie Chang is a poet from Vancouver, Canada. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, The Adroit Journal, SOFTBLOW, The Penn Review, and more. Currently, she interns at Half Mystic Press.
Nobody (2002)
after Mitski,
Listen, the dawn will not hold
your hand. Solitude chose you &
not the dark. Take a pillar of salt
on your tongue & throat it back-
wards over flickers of light as waves
course beneath the stomach. Lonely is
a bow drawn in the wrong direction:
The forest gloating & chewing
all the missed arrows. Marigold
& mud-broken glass will guide
your way home to this fraying family,
skull bits strewn on the floor &
this too, can be art. Your face wilts
under heaven’s spit. But dear, there
is something so celestial about
how isolation defies the stars.
You dragon without a name.
Listen, you orchestrated this song
to play as a one-woman act. Crooned
the world for real magic. This song
is already an utterance unto universe.
The making of martyrdom.
You threw your old name
off the bedroom roof centuries ago,
sobered motherhood into your palm
& self-answered these archaic prayers.
Here, wait & crawl forth to the shore.
The fish & flies anticipate. Child, I am
always listening. Dress your body in a tide
that runs like a footnote off the ocean’s cliff.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
