Lifelines
Sunset. Light wobbles under its inertia.
My mother blurs against my fingertips, linen,
coarse. In the sand, my feet laden with burnt
baywood. I shawl my mouth against the salt wind,
hold her gaze unblinking. A movement, my hand.
The airhorn fogs her ghost. She shudders down
the coastline and I'm left gasping for my own smoke.
The daybreak lint sifts into my hair, eyes.
During the war, anything was possible.
I could see her in Japan, in the latest news reel,
a shadow on the poster when I present myself
for auctioning. I call out, a whistle echoing
the brined shore. Grease-rimmed waves teeth
the trunks of mangrove trees. The oil lurks
into their roots, slips in and drawls into a home.
My mother blurs against my fingertips, linen,
coarse. In the sand, my feet laden with burnt
baywood. I shawl my mouth against the salt wind,
hold her gaze unblinking. A movement, my hand.
The airhorn fogs her ghost. She shudders down
the coastline and I'm left gasping for my own smoke.
The daybreak lint sifts into my hair, eyes.
During the war, anything was possible.
I could see her in Japan, in the latest news reel,
a shadow on the poster when I present myself
for auctioning. I call out, a whistle echoing
the brined shore. Grease-rimmed waves teeth
the trunks of mangrove trees. The oil lurks
into their roots, slips in and drawls into a home.
Emma Miao is a Chinese Canadian poet from Vancouver, BC. Her chapbook, Geography of Mothers, is forthcoming from Frog Hollow Press in 2021. Her poetry is published in Diode Poetry Journal, HOBART, Frontier Poetry, Quarterly West, Atlanta Review, Permafrost Magazine, and The Fiddlehead. Her poem, "Rabbits on the Balcony," won the Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem. She is a Foyle Young Poet of the Year and winner of the F(r)iction Poetry Contest 2020. She was born in 2004.
Art: Creative Commons