ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Grace Q. Song is a Chinese-American writer from New York. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Half-Mystic, The Shallow Ends, DIALOGIST, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, L'Éphémère Review, Crab Creek Review, Into the Void, [PANK], and elsewhere. A high school junior, she has been recognized by Interlochen Arts Academy, Hollins University, Pennsylvania State University, and Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards. In her spare time, she edits for Polyphony Lit and Bitter Melon Magazine. She is a 2019 Best of Net nominee.
Also by Grace Q. Song:
Come Bird, Stranger
How Loneliness Was Invented
A Tree Grows in Gambier, Ohio
False Elegy
— for em.
Here are late words to you: summer again
when you read this.
Summer again when you knock
on my eighth grade door, snow
in September. Listen.
The world is only a backyard
but the body is the house and the wrist
where grief kisses the blue
welcome mat and unravels, sharp
hands, shrapnel. You know this.
The memory pulls hard, lightening.
How you buried the blade
in your palm, ashamed.
How the lines laid red
against the narrow frame
like lipstick swatches.
Your throat curled — mine, trembling
too young to loosen I’m sorry
from the roof of my mouth.
I burned my wrist once, not long ago.
In parallel time, rats loved teeth
pillows, sinews, and I throw
matches through crushed-spine
windows. Look how they devour
skeleton carpets alive. Look
how the light terrifies, how
we flood ourselves in painful
softness. Oh, em. These days
I find myself blue and alive
like the broken heart of thunder.
Although I enjoy the act of writing, I also love the process that comes afterwards: revising. For me, it’s about transformation and growth as I try to figure out what each poem wants to say and how to best say it. Sometimes, revising is easy. Other times, it’s a difficult process. “False Elegy” took a particularly long time to understand.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
