here, corked in the doorframe,
—Ziyi Yan
here, corked in the doorframe,
stretched hide-like over the hinges, meat becoming bone:
a buffer/a body/a battering ram. the ground: snowmelt,
until it isn’t. halfway across the world, a mother
does 刮痧 for the third time: screeching spoon,
splintering skin, screaming louder than her daughter:
your own good/stop writhing/me more than it hurts you
but the fever never broke. back home, i forget
if i am anyone’s daughter. you cower at my skin
grafts: my knee against your stomach, fists
against the wood. i won’t show you my college essay/
didn’t lose the keys again/let me in/
inside, a fire is fattening. inside,
the sickness is spreading. my future has always been
on its knees, head stuck in the birth canal, blood bubbling
instead of mother’s milk. by night, grandma snuck in
with a bottle, begging me to live: a child
is gasping inside you/use your whole body/
pound the floodgates to water–
i splintered the house and never learned to sit for a
meal/to step over a body. tomorrow, i know
i snuck in and didn’t drag anyone home by the skin:
no lovers wasted on the porch because your house
had no room for them to live or die in– everyone
pinned against my door realized that the food was getting
cold. then, i waited: a bouncer/an usher/
a beggar, even when i owned the place: come drop off
the groceries/ come wipe my tears/come tell me
how to write/ come talk of the future/come/
but i turn a doorknob and nothing changes
on the other side of the world– i know
because you are already there: scraped
to a chalk outline/the door sloppy
with snow/stop writhing/
let me in–
About
ZIYI YAN (闫梓祎) is a Chinese writer. Her work is published in Poetry Northwest, Rust and Moth, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others. She is also the editor-in-chief of the Dawn Review. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @Ziyiyan___ or visit her website at https://ziyiyan.carrd.co/