Emma Zhang
resonance
how everything is just one thing away from nothing. we walk past
dry creek on a sunday afternoon muttering density, research, eclipse, cranes erupting
like bean sprouts from city corners, triumphant with the time they will create.
cigarettes, back corners, mondays drawing staves by the pool deck. she says:
the first step to growing up is to hear the birds sing again, so i wait under the willow tree,
braiding my shoelaces like you taught me in fourth grade. and come nightfall,
she bangs the windows, rolling dough into some elongated triangle, remember the carnivals?
and i no longer call my grandparents but i fold my clothes like they taught me to,
a peninsula of straight lines with a dip. and they tell me you have until i’m 80
and i've never understood the use of wind chimes except to shine where it hurts the least,
quench the call of church bells and ragweed and yearning for jawbreakers. & i stayed,
i've always stayed. the creek is drying and our family friends are driving out of the same
ivy lined gates and nothing is just one thing soft still holding you.
dry creek on a sunday afternoon muttering density, research, eclipse, cranes erupting
like bean sprouts from city corners, triumphant with the time they will create.
cigarettes, back corners, mondays drawing staves by the pool deck. she says:
the first step to growing up is to hear the birds sing again, so i wait under the willow tree,
braiding my shoelaces like you taught me in fourth grade. and come nightfall,
she bangs the windows, rolling dough into some elongated triangle, remember the carnivals?
and i no longer call my grandparents but i fold my clothes like they taught me to,
a peninsula of straight lines with a dip. and they tell me you have until i’m 80
and i've never understood the use of wind chimes except to shine where it hurts the least,
quench the call of church bells and ragweed and yearning for jawbreakers. & i stayed,
i've always stayed. the creek is drying and our family friends are driving out of the same
ivy lined gates and nothing is just one thing soft still holding you.
Biography
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Emma Zhang (she/her) is a Chinese American writer from San Jose, California. Her work has been recognized by The Adroit Prizes, and appears in Up North Lit, Evocations Review, among others. She reads for Aster Lit and The Adroit Journal and is endlessly fascinated by doorknobs.
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