"condemned by the sun" by Haley King

Grace Marie Liu | Self Portrait as Lisa Gherardini in a Wheat Field

Here in this mayfly-flecked harvest, there is
no place for the dead–so we pad our paper skirts
with white bone and take apple jelly in glass goblets.
Now, even the turquoise pond has dried, still
by instinct. The wildflowers sigh and shut their eyes.
Lisa, I’ve got a plan: We’ll retire to Florence,
feed ham sandwiches to pigeons. I’m all thumbs–
but I’ll plant apple trees into neat rows like tombstones
for you. We’ll swill amber wine and olive oil,
courtesy of your husband. You can cut off
your hair, or have the evening braid it. I can be
content so long as the moon bleeds through our bedroom.
Any heartache, I’ll slip into green bottles and set sail.
Lisa, look me in the eye and say that we’re the same.
That our shadow will stretch when the smoke thins. Don’t
you love me? Lisa, I’m calling it. Someday, I’ll wake
to find this field spilling over with wildfire, your blue
-black veil sagging in my fist. I’ll spot you, dancing.

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Grace Marie Liu is a Chinese-American poet from Michigan. A 2024 YoungArts National Winner with Distinction in Poetry and an alumna of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Minnesota Review, Sundog Lit, and Okay Donkey, among others. She serves as an Editor-in-Chief for Polyphony Lit.

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​Haley King, also known by their artist name GRVNGE LESTAT, is a Chicago based LGBTQ+ mixed media artist who primary uses illustrative methods to construct their body of work and combines that with digitally manipulating their own photography to achieve an effort to create their artistic world that houses themes of hauntingly provoking atmospheres. 

Instagram @grvnge.lestat

Tik tok @grungelestat