Catherine Chen | Ritual, June 23rd | Poets Resist

Catherine Chen is a poet, performer, and author of the chapbook Manifesto, or: Hysteria (Big Lucks). Their writing has appeared in Slate, The Rumpus, Apogee, Anomaly, and Nat. Brut, among others. A recipient of fellowships from Poets House, Lambda Literary, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, they’re currently working on a libretto.

Catherine Chen’s Website.

Also by Catherine Chen: Memphis Opera Blues Two Poems The Ordinary is Worth Investigation

Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 17, 2019

Catherine Chen

Ritual, June 23rd

“Take the leaves of a full-blown flower selected from the mountain range of Sweet Whispers. Infuse with 100% rosehip extract. Keep this in a cool setting for seven months as you gather the water of the summer’s first seven rain showers. Blend until smooth, emulsify with room temp egg whites. When the paste thickens, go outside. Write there.” Before setting my phone to airplane mode I scream into the archive, which is a mesh sleeve. My friend sends me their nudes then we talk about what reality TV has taught us. My mother blesses my glass of tap water then we wish death on Henry Kissinger. Sometimes I see in you the dregs of my nonfictional shame: poking around in ashes. It makes you forget we erased his legacy but not his entity. We don’t talk enough about why we discard the people we do in our lives. I say no out of habit. Then it becomes practice. It becomes the sky.