Grace Q. Song
The Gods
after C. Dale Young
You had the name of an angel.
It was June, a full blush,
azaleas scattering in a red fever.
We ate cake by the black oak tree.
You strung my spine together
with thirty-three jade beetles,
and I drank water from the pool
of your elbow.
Your face in my lap: lyrical,
imperfect.
So many things wanted to love you.
So many things, living among us
and against us, descended from their thrones
and wanted to possess you.
At night, I’d wait for deceit,
rage, and chaos to rise,
pale and silent, from the river of your bones.
When you couldn’t look at me anymore,
I opened the window
to the other side of the country,
and you climbed out of me like an animal,
dark and wet—
my pain.
Grace Q. Song is a writer residing in New York City. Her poetry and fiction have been published or are forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, PANK, The Journal, The Offing, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She attends Columbia University.
Return to January 2022 Edition
after C. Dale Young
You had the name of an angel.
It was June, a full blush,
azaleas scattering in a red fever.
We ate cake by the black oak tree.
You strung my spine together
with thirty-three jade beetles,
and I drank water from the pool
of your elbow.
Your face in my lap: lyrical,
imperfect.
So many things wanted to love you.
So many things, living among us
and against us, descended from their thrones
and wanted to possess you.
At night, I’d wait for deceit,
rage, and chaos to rise,
pale and silent, from the river of your bones.
When you couldn’t look at me anymore,
I opened the window
to the other side of the country,
and you climbed out of me like an animal,
dark and wet—
my pain.
Grace Q. Song is a writer residing in New York City. Her poetry and fiction have been published or are forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, PANK, The Journal, The Offing, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She attends Columbia University.
Return to January 2022 Edition