ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Kimberly Gibson-Tran (she/they) is an emerging writer with over 70 published poems and essays — most within the last two years. She studied linguistics at Baylor and the University of North Texas, writing her thesis about poems with "Lines by Someone Else." Her poems appear in New Verse Review, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Baltimore Review, Reed Magazine, Scrivener Creative, Passages North, Porter House Review, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the 2025 Rowayat Poetry Contest. Raised by missionaries in Thailand, she now lives in North Dallas and is submitting her first manuscript: The Voyagers.
July 15, 2026
The Golden Triangle
Your elbows angle around me
as we stare out at the Mekong,
the little waves that lift little boats
from shores of Laos and Myanmar.
As we stare out at the Mekong
we think about flowers, milk smuggled
from shores of Laos and Myanmar
in the utter dark of the night water.
We think about flowers, milk smuggled
into veins, rivers in the body, spreading
in the utter dark of the night water.
It’s December, a cool wind moves
into veins, rivers in the body, spreading
over our crispy, condensed-milk roti.
It’s December, a cool wind moves
but can’t touch or tangle this golden light.
Over our crispy, condensed-milk roti
you and I fight for the last sweet bite
but can’t touch or tangle this golden light,
that shaky spiral of want infinite as
you and I fight for the last sweet bite.
Your elbows angle around me,
that shaky spiral of want infinite as
the little waves that lift little boats.
"The Golden Triangle" was inspired by a poetry prompt to "write a pantoum that mentions a favorite shape." I thought about shapes and the memory of one converged on a location I'd visited recently in Thailand's northern town of Mae Sai, which is situated at the border of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. In past eras the river was heavily used for opium trafficking across these borders. Surprisingly, the pantoum came more easily because I didn't know where it was going stanza to stanza — I could only see a few feet in front of me, knowing I had a breath before needing to repeat a line just laid down. I framed the scene as a love poem because the memory of this visit revolved around showing my husband around the country I grew up in. It was December and we did eat delicious roti from a street vendor. For me this poem speaks to a convergence of desires — those things, however inarticulable, that we crave from one another. In mathematics, The Golden Triangle is a certain isosceles triangle through which you can trace the points of a logarithmic spiral.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
