"We wake in the middle of a life, hungry." — Jane Wong, from “After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly” (Poetry Foundation)
15 notes
·
View notes
That’s exactly why I love poetry, why we need poetry. It asks us to come to it on our own terms, to let go of our structures—clock and calendar, email and spreadsheets, clarity and aboutness. We need bewilderment. We need transformation.
Jane Wong, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City
26 notes
·
View notes
After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly
How hard it is to sleep
in the middle of a life.
— Audre Lorde
We wake in the middle of a life, hungry.
We smear durian along our mouths, sing soft
death a lullaby. Carcass breath, eros of licked fingers
and the finest perfume. What is love if not rot?
We wear the fruit’s hull as a spiked crown, grinning
in green armor. Death to the grub, fat in his milky
shuffle! Death to the lawlessness of dirt! Death
to mud and its false chocolate! To the bloated sun
we want to slice open and yolk all over
the village. We want a sun-drenched slug feast,
an omelet loosening its folds like hot Jell-O. We want
the marbled fat of steak and all its swirling pink
galaxies. We want the drool, the gnash, the pluck of
each corn kernel, raw and summer swell.
Tears welling up oil. Order up! Pickled
cucumbers piled like logs for a fire, like fat limbs we
pepper and succulent in. Order up: shrimp
chips curling in a porcelain bowl like subway seats.
Grapes peeled from bitter bark — almost translucent,
like eyes we would rather see. Little girl, what do you
leave, leaven in your sight? Death to the open
eyes of the dying. Here, there are so many open
eyes we can’t close each one. No, we did not say
the steamed eye of a fish. No eyelids fluttering like
no butterfly wings. No purple yam lips. We said eyes.
Still and resolute as a heartbreaker. Does this break
your heart? Look, we don’t want
to be rude, but seconds, please. Want: globes of oranges
swallowed whole like a basketball or Mars or whatever
planet is the most delicious. Slather Saturn!
Ferment Mercury! Lap up its film of dust, yuk sung!
Seconds, thirds, fourths! Meat wool! A bouquet of
chicken feet! A garden of melons, monstrous
in their bulge! Prune back nothing. We purr
in this garden. We comb through berries and come out
so blue. Little girl, lasso tofu, the rope
slicing its belly clean. Deep fry a cloud so it tastes like
bitter gourd or your father leaving — the exhaust of
his car, charred. Serenade a snake and slither its tongue
into yours and bite. Love! What is love
if not knotted in garlic? Child, we move through graves
like eels, delicious with our heads first, our mouths
agape. Our teeth: little needles to stitch a factory of
everything made in China. You ask: Are you hungry?
Hunger eats through the air like ozone. You ask: What
does it mean to be rootless? Roots are good to use as
toothpicks. You: How can you wake in the middle of
a life? We shut and open our eyes like the sun shining
on tossed pennies in a forgotten well. Bald copper,
blood. Yu choy bolts into roses down here.
While you were sleeping, we woke to the old leaves
of your backyard shed and ate that and one of your
lost flip-flops too. In a future life, we saw rats overtake
a supermarket with so much milk, we turned opaque.
We wake to something boiling. We wake to wash dirt
from lettuce, to blossom into your face. Aphids along
the lashes. Little girl, don’t forget to take care
of the chickens, squawking in their mess and stench.
Did our mouths buckle at the sight
of you devouring slice after slice of pizza and
the greasy box too? Does this frontier swoon for you?
It’s time to wake up. Wake the tapeworm who loves
his home. Wake the ants, let them do-si-do
a spoonful of peanut butter. Tell us, little girl, are you
hungry, awake, astonished enough?
Jane Wong, How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James Books, 2021)
7 notes
·
View notes
Small bodies of water by Nina Mingya Powles
28 notes
·
View notes
the waiting by jane wong
35 notes
·
View notes
It is early and I have no one to trust. The sun wrestles wildly about me, throwing light in unbearable places.
"The Act of Killing" by Jane Wong
5 notes
·
View notes
To be a good daughter means to carry everything with you at all times, the luggage of the past lifted to the mouth
When we look at each other, my mother laughs like an overripe tomato on a windowsill
— Jane Wong, Everything
32 notes
·
View notes
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything
By Jane Wong.
2 notes
·
View notes
We wake in the middle of a life, hungry.
Jane Wong, from “After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly” (Poetry Foundation)
13 notes
·
View notes
—Jane Wong, "After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly" , published in Poetry November 2018 magazine
[text ID: "Death to mud and its false chocolate!"]
9 notes
·
View notes
We wake in the middle of a life, hungry.
We smear durian along our mouths, sing soft
death a lullaby. Carcass breath, eros of licked fingers
and the finest perfume. What is love if not rot?
After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly BY JANE WONG
7 notes
·
View notes
It’s incredible: how one poem can expand your entangled mind and heart, borderless.
Jane Wong, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City
14 notes
·
View notes
My mother fills an empty can of soup with water and swirls it, until each speck of oil catches. How beautiful, this twinkling tin. I have always loved what most people throw away: broccoli stems, fish heads, the white of green onions and its dangling foot like an anemone, the rat tail of a radish. I dream of boiling the salty shells of pistachios. Of gorging myself with compost, slick with nutrients.
Jane Wong, from “When You Died,” How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James Books, 2021)
8 notes
·
View notes
“Once, when I was four, I poured Carnation condensed milk all over my face. I was as white as I’ll ever be. Eyelashes of cream, I blinked on, too ghostly for my own good.”
— excerpt from ‘When You Died’, How to Not Be Afraid of Anything by Jane Wong
0 notes
Portion of The Cactus by Jane Wong
1 note
·
View note