Thrush Poetry Journal
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Claire S. Lee
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Self-Portrait as a Hitchhiker
 

Say there is more to the vertical thumb
            than a fast-paced command,           say
 
it is a plea for love from a stranger to a stranger
            & let the conversation lick the hitchhiker
 
empty, the cold-blooded sounds darting past
            the engine, & let the beggar surrender
 
in the comfort of the passenger seat, brimming
          with lukewarm confessions. Before he hums
 
phantom, the apocryphal stories he gave & left
         to the ambivalent woman handling
  
ignition will be retold countless to the family
            he tried to escape, like a turntable
 
that fails to stop. His house stained with children
            who shudder away from their mother
 
who can’t pronounce “milk” or “squirrel” or
            “radio”, but can speak to her
 
own mother back in Bundang, with men who
            gnashed themselves silent for a decade
 
& forgot to open up again, resentment for
            America driven into their chest & never
 
released, with the uncle who will smoke
        Marlboro until his wife falls to lung cancer.
 
The address to the driver, always: anywhere
            but here. The thumb, still lingering toward the
 
sky, empty of birds & full of shrapnel, trying
         to say: There is more than this, I swear.




Claire S. Lee is from Southern California. Her writing has been recognized by Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Ringling College of Art and Design, and the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and can be found in Inklette, Indianapolis Review, and Rising Phoenix Review, among others.



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