Three Poems by Stacey Tran

Mar 1, 2018

One Poem by Kyle Schlesinger

SURVIVAL #

We went into the garden to pick out a poison blocker

We saw fish mint

A lizard’s tail

A chameleon plant

Your heartleaf

My fishwort

Our bishop’s weed

We are tender stalks

A fuzzy palindrome

I’m your upside-down egg

You’re my bird’s nest soup

FAKE HAIKU

I text C—— a poem about a bird with one wing
She replies by mailing me a piece of cloth
Cut from the pillow she sits on to meditate

●

My pronouns are shipyard, jellyfish & ten
I sorely miss the city
The angels miss me more

●

Locked in a bevy of worrisome corners
I turn the river over to rub its belly
Uncertain how long it will take

●

Mãng cầu, yêu cầu
Our fruits often share the same desire
Wishy heights of romance

●

We slip into a daily performance
Discovering micro-utopias
A matter of loving the wind

●

My pronouns are free, heard & floral
Belly button as shiny as a dime
Swirling on the linoleum floor

●

In love I wake up first
I sweep the floor
Wherever the grass is long

●

Bite into a sugar rose
What do you feel?
Who will trim the weeping willow?

CATCHING FISH WITH TWO HANDS

(Waterbed flirtation session)

Heart skips
into rose
colored camo

Extension cord
rests in a pile

An onion asleep
is a congregation

Going home to feed
unanswerable
reservoirs

My father sharpens
his knives
to cut oranges

The mind dips
a white swan
swimming in a green latte

What came first:
a second or its hand?

I is anchored
by its little head

Jaw a compass

A number
that rhymes
with two

Hold my head
beneath the strainer

My hair will catch
laws of warmth
laws of loss

Epitome of impatience
drying on the roof

Jasmine green blossoms
quite good for a luck charm

A bear cry is the sound a bear makes
while feeding baby birds
to comfort them

Half eaten seeds
blow off into the sea

My watch tilts
toward public crying

Question marks
are the wettest
part of my body

Stacey Tran is a writer from Portland, Oregon. She is the creator of Tender Table, a storytelling series about food, family, and identity. Her writing can be found in diaCRITICS, The Fanzine, Gramma, and The Volta. Wendy’s Subway released her first chapbook, Fake Haiku (2017). She is the author of Soap for the Dogs (Gramma, 2018).

One Poem by Kyle Schlesinger

But the idea of transformation has always been something that I romanticize in a work. I’m cautious of it but I also need it to connect my thoughts with the process of making. That’s really important.

—

Nari Ward

Three Poems by Stacey Tran

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