Glass City Aubade
Gavin Yuan Gao
Nights shipwrecked / in nameless wanting
The city a floating glass
garden / to be lost in
Banished from the blinked-out streets / we put
our dollar-store faith / in the claw machine
wager
Nights shipwrecked / in nameless wanting
The city a floating glass
garden / to be lost in
Banished from the blinked-out streets / we put
our dollar-store faith / in the claw machine
wager
Morning smells like horseradish,
dogshit. The squat toilet in my uncle’s house:
too cramped to hold
a breathing thing. My cousin, barely older
than three, calls me “姐姐, 姐姐,” as she
Exchanging one anya-nyelv, mother-tongue, for another is like
nibbling salted peanuts at the sticky bar top,
unplanned but eventual for a bilingual migrant.
The other mother-
nyelv tongue is
Because of its hardiness and tendency to escape cultivation, these non-native wisterias are considered invasive species in many parts of the United States, especially the Southeast, due to their
When my mother built me
again, she did not wait for sobs
to pass. She left clasps undone
then wept in her bedroom.
I tried to reach for the gown
but my fingers mumbled back hair
into metal
the man who touches you also touches
the other women of the city, this special
man who you chose to be your first man
even after you’ve met so many men who
wanted to know you as a woman
One Night We Drove Through Yellowstone
I dreamt of a white bear last night,
like the ones in the rainforests
of Alaska. Landlocked, we dreamt
of whispering to them, shaking off
one
the child inside of me
has become comfortable
with the heat of the months
as they melt down
like hot wax then build one
on top of the other
into a mountain
in silence
has started to
King of the Road
naked as death
begging on the highway
I calibrate the instrument
of my breastplate to lead me
back to you
I never once saw a dog chase a bone
but I never knew a dog that
I often confuse the dead horses
for trees. I say things like termites
care about the weather, or dark stars
will always find their way to empty
rooms. Anyway, the dead horses are real,
Carrot Flowers
We are toward somewhere in the first sentence. There is June & us or us or June because that’s what’s left of it. I walk like a walk with a walk on the table. The walk is finding
Neck Tattoo
Your neck tattoo spoke to me but I needed a
translator. Needed a nail gun, a barn wall to
respond to your forward advances. After a
night together, I woke to find that your
real / unreal
last night i had a dream
that my teeth fell
out all in a row.
i woke with them still
the babies are most dangerous because
they have not learned how to control their venom
the way we make the same decisions over and over and over
i am your man
tall stranger man
you have sung a lot of songs
you fall in love often
and maybe
you lose some things along the way
but everything is all right
and none of this matters
It's their first practice in good spring weather,
not only not raining, not cold, but full of light.
Blessed be the millwrights on the open hearth that awaited him; the nurses and elevator operators; secretaries; plumbers; electricians
Is this new relationship self-sabotage in disguise, or is it the cure?
Garielle's longest, most peculiar, most particularized book. A sure-to-be collector's item. Not be be missed!