for Jaymee Goh Star anise floats in the night–sea of meat bone tea, backed by the cloud–flower shapes of lingusticum. Astragalus, codonopsis, and licorice lashed into a raft drift among goji berries swimming like vermillion carp. Angelica and polygonatum swirl petal–soft as blossoms; dioscorea bobs and forms the white sands of a riverbank. Bulbs of […]
I have known eons among celestials The way you have known a second. I have stretched from the rains of Draco To the banks of the dreaming Mekong. I was there when a son of the Shakya Flowered into bright Tathagata, Breaking the cycles of Samsara. I watched my wisest daughter journey To your young […]
Tell me what ‘legitimate’ means— how much proof do I need to convince you that blood is blood and bruises are bruises? Why is my voice a casualty of violence you won’t examine? Did I say no? Was I drunk? What was I wearing? A better question: why is my body not my body? Here […]
My neighbors are good people. My neighbors know how to find monsters in the dark. They have welcomed me to the neighborhood. John Sinclair, my neighbor, asked me what I think about witches. He asked over a glass of wine the color of a moon drowned in a creek. I drowned the wine with more […]
the banana plant her hand and the embodiment of being left behind, her hand beneath the soil, the weight of leaves and dirt. what to make it hold. what the word “held” even means. terrifying secrets buried in the yard. why must her love be the reason behind a swishing sword? you are not a […]
grandma’s the one who taught me that spells were most potent baked into pie but now she has started to forget first her keys, then her spells memories thinned like her silver hair doctors run tests as grandma says she’s not worth any fuss I’m not fussing—I’m fighting to preserve the bright spark in her […]
Only love could make me long for all the things I once feared: eternity as silence, forgetfulness, a scar over the raw wound you left behind. You taught me heaven is not a place, but the magic circle drawn around two souls, and then you broke it, invisible ink scuffed so you could let the […]
Trap her in thorn, and she’ll slip her skin Drown her in water, she’ll learn to swim Burn her, she’ll turn into smoke and wind Think you can catch her? Well, think again Fox demon, foxy face Foxgirls don’t know their place Marry her, bury her Water her bones Set your sons over her Let […]
Never read my life As the diary of some sad refugee. My account is not intended As a routine narrative of adversity overcome, “Mere survival” once again, transcending A descent to White–Hot Hell Converted to the Placid Limbo of Frogs. Know I miss the familiar strange here, In a way you cannot fathom. Our hard […]