Issue 1.7
June and July 2023
Cela Xie
Salt for Sodom
Salt for Sodom
I was fired at one on a Friday afternoon.
What else could I do, in my reverie,
but drive to the beach? I wanted the sea.
I saw a woman half-bared in the tide,
bronze with the last laugh of the light.
I only looked so long against the wind
before the sun left signal flares in my
closed eyes, and I turned for home.
You should pray to be changed by God—
so said my father the night I confessed.
I waited for sand to rise through my hands,
but only the waves came to ruin with me.
Devon Brock
On a Night Like Any Other
On a Night Like Any Other
Here I am a dolphin, a jellyfish,
a moray eel. I am collateral,
a mercenary reaping as the fisher
stars plunge down their nets,
their baits, the whole
of which draws me up and out,
hand over hand, but wants
nothing of me. My flesh
cannot be sold to the gods
in the marketplace.
I am all bone and envy,
never born to thin air,
but hatched in the murk
of a trawling: wastefish.
Stiff keels cut deep
in this sorrowed gloom,
as what is flung to the deck
is crushed like Cancer, then
kicked through the scupper
for the codmeat of trade.
Paul Jaskunas
Criminals
Criminals
We paddled out in our kayak
to the center of a lake made gold
by sunset. From the reeds
along the shadowed edge
came a disturbance—ripples,
the soft splash of fins
caught in a torn, tangled,
weed-strewn net
left forgotten by villagers
long ago—two fish,
their amber skins cut
on the string from thrashing
to get into the great water again.
We sliced open the net.
Bleeding from gills and tails,
barely alive, the fish
hung in black water,
yet swollen with life,
eyes and mouths
gaping.
We took them
into the belly of our boat.
On shore, we scraped off
the gold scales, scooped
out the guts, and made
a meal from those fish
caught by treachery,
found by chance.
They cooked up crisp
in the oil, delicious.
When it was all over,
we sat on shore,
stomachs full, and looked
into the dark water
like criminals.
Adam Haver
Enlil Speaks Across the Alluvial Plain
Enlil Speaks Across the Alluvial Plain
Because they were boisterous and kept
the gods awake, Enlil sent a sudden flood.
Is it enough to tolerate? My vision not
your vision, my leaf on a longer branch,
yours near the canopy, near the furthest
grasp of sun—*quiet now, the waters come. *
He discontinued immortality without
remorse, or a mild remorse unrecorded.
Is your death greater than my death now
that we are mortal? Now that we both bleed
tints of red jealousy, all for the cause of
bold comparisons—*you’ll be fine, at first.*
His assembly sent the Bull of Heaven to
slay Gilgamesh after Ishtar was offended.
Who is spurned but those who spurn an ill
attempt at union? Two rivers diverged, the
Tigris swift, the Euphrates enduring, until
confluence—*child, your slumber is my rest. *
Zeyu Ma
To Yang Guifei at Mawei Station
To Yang Guifei at Mawei Station
Pale blue mists, rising above sorghum fields
carrying marcescence out of valley’s umbrage—
no time for homesick glances, carriages grind on
six hundred leagues, from Jiannan to Chang’an
simmering nimbus caterwaul.
Cuckoos cry in harmony with Daoists’ cantillation,
my soul has no control of itself, stirring
the skeleton under layers of crimson quilts. I ought
to have renounced imperium at Mawei Station. Too late
I learned to pray before Guanyin's niche, that
begging never wins favors from a Bodhisattva.
“She was treacherous: her death well deserved,”
I deny it in tears—you are faultless,
your fragrance is still unbesmirched.
@tab*I dreamt of you dressing*
@tab*in a gilded mirror, donning*
@tab*your silken-pheasant gossamer,*
@tab*rubbing on saffron rouges, waiting*
@tab*to hear one soul-snatching incantation.*
@tab*If you want (if that brings you home)*
@tab*I will promulgate the gods’ will, burning*
@tab*down my desires, burning down*
@tab*every lacquered idol.*
Remember last year’s plum rain?
Plumes of smoke engulfed your throat;
amidst chaos you broke free of my grip
disappearing into the whiteness. No remorse—
to the everlasting regret—you surrendered.
I know time dwindles to candle’s tears,
so I opened Tongguan's gates, clawing
at seasons’ crease. I let the river floods in,
I wanted the apocalypse.