Two poems by Kristine Ma
of us make a move to close it. instead, we fill our lungs with river water
and tell ourselves
that the salt in the sea will make us happy again.
again, the lightning flashes behind the blinds and the thunder
follows. when the thunder wakes up little brother, you are finally here.
here, there is no room for empty
words, so i fill the spaces in between.
last night, i woke up with a sharp stone in my stomach and my mom
told me stories about cold gases and young girls.
infertility eating them alive. nai nai hands me a pack of eight
hair clips for me to take home. on the train ride, i trace
the gold spines. i found a pair of shoes and another under the bed
but they were wet, hard as bricks, soles drowning in the spaces
between words. i soak them in sky.
you can pray for the rain to stop, he said,
but explanations are futile where there is no meaning,
so it’s summer,
so it’s weather maidens and sky fish,
so it’s raining outside and i am falling upwards.
i.
four fingers above the ankle bone lies the pressure point that controls
estrogen. four fingers below the belly button. menstrual cycles—
the legends of the moon and the tides,
bare-bellied and legged— the strip of bare skin at midriff that puts us at risk
for infertility, my mother said.
she presses two fingers to the place above my ankle,
kneading skin until it is no longer.
ii.
my girls and i— we ride
with the windows rolled all the way down,
wind whipping our hair into something sweet—
meringue, and they scoop it up with their fingers,
licking once, twice. then double dip, come back
for more. ethereal, soft like angel cake. promise an éclair kiss
in exchange for heat, reloading
as we scrunch our noses to the sun, smile with our eyes.
iii.
stitching scarves out of wine corks, purl stitch with gaps between thighs.
in washington d.c., a drunk man on the street kept his gnarled hand
low, catching flesh, sink-hook, and squeezing. his jaundiced eyes,
acrid breath in her ear, whispering something that she didn’t hear.
in the shower that night, she couldn’t wash it off.
she does not want to be first person.
neither does she want to hear you.
iv.
thursdays, i unstick the plastic from skin and suffocate
in linens instead.
v.
fridays, we line our throats with lettuce trim and lace,
brush our hair straight. we make heads
turn. we are indestructible. we let boys rim our fingers
then brush them away with the same. we make suspension bridges
out of our bodies and when the afternoon sun touches our skin
we are empyrean. we sink our legs into the thin border
where the water laps sand a week before chicago issues e.coli warnings,
let bikini straps touch the sun and then watch
as they swirl, tumbling in the washing machines, commercialized neon
made soft like watercolor.
the dim light of the laundry room, marble surface cool
under our dangling, exposed legs, head tipped back. cheeks always
flushed with the rusting copper of longing.
