Stephanie Shih
Anselm

in dreams i am dressed
in layers of you
painted paper gowns
curling around my waist in
stiff folds
                  it is a white
hell here, dancing circles of snow
down and around these
wirey streets
                                    yours is a
ghost town where weary-bodied angels
haunt lonely bars: faceless, solemn

but you have sculpted them
alive again painter                  yes,
salving their brittle bones
with pale pink and gray
                                            mystery

Anonymous

1. A suitcase's lip laid mid-word and
open, the anatomy of a wardrobe
spilling over edges -- still
leftover from weeks before

2. A desk undone among signs
of life: a pair of reading glasses
and dog-eared novels toppled
across crosswords unfinished

3. A refrigerator keeping fresh
only what is no longer wanted,
the bulb dead days ago
but yet to be noticed

4. A photograph of a girl forgotten
hanging by a single corner,
the always-motion of
falling finally captured

Run

Our growing up days -- those
awkwardly limbed and lusty days
running streets, legs carrying us
barely fast enough for a swift breeze
through our hair. This is how
they tell our story now:
arms pumping, and invincible.

...

Diana, do you remember that night
you died? I try and write it down
sometimes, these late-at-night times
alone in unknown rooms. Here,
there is an old typewriter who
waits for me patiently. And in it

I want to sound out your shape in
lettered keys, each swift hammer’s hand
scratching you into its black ribbon --
the sound of fragile bones
as they wrote your story
into the slick asphalt of August evening.
We cried. We sobbed into the romance
of suicide. (The storm had stopped

and every man and woman careful
to drive too slow.)

...

But now, each strand of you in lovely hairs
waves its own and singular goodbye:
wind rushing faster than we
ever dreamed, and wonderful.

<< Back to Issue 8, 2005