by Radian Hong
I slip through the cracked door,
nose brushing the wood.
You left it open for the cat,
I know. Your mouth is open like an anemone.
Your phone rests on your chest
under your hand
like something your god gave you.
You are a mother,
that is to say, a landscape.
Where your body ends
and the blankets begin
is a secret. That is to say,
when I hold your hand and map
the scarred rocks of your knuckles
I know. You get up suddenly
and drive us out west,
headlights slicing the soft night.
When you open the car doors
at a moonlit beach,
take us into the trembling waves,
and tell us how sailors mistook
the jagged rocks for mermaids,
I know. The wet hem of your dress
dragging in the sand.
The numb fingertip
where you sliced your nerve as a girl
digging into my palm. Always
searching. I know your god
and my god are not the same.
I know that when you fall silent
as a broken watch
you are somewhere else.
That is to say, with the mermaids.
And the ocean shivers again,
but this time with something like
delight.
Radian Hong is a student and writer from Northern California. His creative work appears or is forthcoming in Diode Poetry Journal, The Shore Poetry, Necessary Fiction and other journals, and has been recognized by The Poetry Society of the UK and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.