ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Winniebell Xinyu Zong was born and raised in an industrial city in China. She is the winner of Columbia Journal's Womxn's History Month Special Issue in poetry, a Publishing Intern at Copper Canyon Press, and the editor-in-chief of Touchstone Literary Magazine. Her recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barren Magazine, Meridian, and Poetry Online, among others. Nominated for Best New Poets and AWP's Intro Journals Project, Zong is currently pursuing an English M.A. and teaches composition writing at Kansas State University.
Wrinkles as Ocean’s Trenches
At last, the ocean waves rest
steadfast on my forehead, flow & ebb
as I clench & calm, glee & gasp.
Between my brows, Mama’s frown:
salt & sugar crystalized in creases
to say, leather paper furrows in the sun.
It reminds me to smile & not
let the fish tails swim around my eyes,
to spit into what thickens the blood
& pass down carvings on our shared skin.
I once chose to kiss heaving decks
over damp hair, ridges over coastline,
so Mama laved inward to pull & tug
the fortune teller’s hands & pray,
please let the wrinkles only come to me
& I waded toward the shallow end.
We tucked the word, love, in the desolate
reach. Bygones, let us be. Let us swirl
in what to become, our portraits
churning into one. Let us be
predictable: two gravitating orbs
that call for the return of tides & the silver
longing of gentle on the ocean floor.
When she rains, I’ll vapor, our navel & eye
the depth between water & sky.
Our family’s love language is minimal and internal, and they loved me in the same silent way by which they were loved before. This poem is for my Ma, who begged the fortuneteller to spare me and let her take my share of life’s troubles, but she used to rarely admit that she loved me — it discomforted her. We have a complicated history, but we’ve found each other again in recent years while we are oceans apart. As I began to grow wrinkles and share Ma’s old hairstyle, we often joked about not being able to tell each other apart in pictures — it makes Ma proud; it makes me proud, too.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published quarterly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
