When my father brought out a large beam of plywood that my brother intended on using to make a crossbow and crashed it against the back of my thighs, I heard my mother scream, you are responsible for your own body. I turned my head back and saw the bend of the plywood, the bend of my father’s arms, ready, tinted teeth grinding and blending with the sawdust. I heard the wood speak to me then. The wood told me about its time in the East: about its cousins and how they loved to practice contortion; about the shape of the most beautiful logogram it had ever seen, and how it had always been jealous of paper for being the canvas for a thing that could somehow encapsulate even more…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September/October 2020