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A Line Between Integration and Diaspora #3 by Sinejan Kılıç Buchina

Analysis of Light by Grace Q. Song

               Coney Island, New York

When our thighs are slick with saltwater
we slip on flip flops and mercy. She runs

toward the blinking fair, only sixteen
and skinny. I watch the lights devour her

in sharp angles. Neon never lies, but I can’t
remember her body, the one she shed

last winter. I don’t tell her this. Too much of us
hold our minds inescapable, like an iron night.

Half a ferris wheel later, we sway
in this strange anchor, each capsule

a lone, bright cell. I pop the top
of my Bud Light and drink

glass shards stuck in my throat. I’m sorry
I love in dishonest ways, told myself

I’d love her more in the dark. I was wrong
about the time I thought she’d die

the time she closed her eyes and fell—
head hitting the edge of the bathtub. Listen.

Full moons lead baby sea turtles back home
but a car’s blinking tail snaps their spine in two.

​Like them, we’ll die with our eyes glowing
in hunger or bone-white confusion.


Grace Q. Song is a Chinese-American writer from New York. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, DIALOGIST, Crab Creek Review, Into the Void, and [PANK], among others. A 2019 Best of Net nominee, she enjoys listening to ABBA and Yoke Lore.

Sinejan Kılıç Buchina is a NY based artist and visual instructor. She is of Circassian-Abkhazian ancestry, born in Turkey. She received her B.F.A. in Art in Istanbul, and continued her education with programs in London and Berlin, and completed her MA in New York. Buchina has exhibited in galleries and institutions throughout New York, London and Istanbul, and is currently working on evolving projects in New York, Sukhum and Istanbul.
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