for poetry should not be therapy

- chen chen

Yaeji sings This product is called Depression

& I think about how I haven’t been out dancing

in a year, & how I say Because I’m a homebody

when my body misses the way bodies become song

& light.

- Chen Chen

I can’t decide

whether the university

is a refuge for the bookish lonely

or a T-shirt store

run by a soda company.

- Chen Chen

O onerous sibilants, O onomatopoetic glibness

- Marilyn Chin

All beautiful boyfriends are transitory

- Marilyn Chin

I cry for you     but no sound wells up in my throat

- Marilyn Chin

Ornamental     Oriental     techno     impresarios

      I am your parlor rug     your chamber bauble

Love me     stone me     I am all yours

      Pound     Pound     my father’s Ezra

- Marilyn Chin

Metaphor     metaphor     my pestilential aesthetic

- Marilyn Chin

Why cry over dried flowers?

They’re meant to be straw.

- Marilyn Chin

As Robert Frost said, the best way out is always through.

Or as Alanis Morissette said, the only way out is through.

- Chen Chen

Your emergency contact has called

to quit.  Your back-up plan has backed

away. 

- Chen Chen