Primer - by Ian Smith

Word for Word

by William Zhuang

Grandpa comes from a muted age Where expressions are likely swallowed, So he pours love word for word Into knee-deep pots and moon-shaped woks.

Each year he tests the freezer’s limit, The poor buzzing thing filled to the brim; Only releasing its burden of goods When his daughters’ children return.

For now I get family photos Of smiling faces besides china dishes, Wondering if my share is saved When I too knock on Grandpa’s door.

I really miss you! Grandpa said to me The last time we called, and It made me flinch a little, just how Sudden his silence snapped;

After rehearsing all his life Only to lose at the age of eighty, Deprived of his hushed language When reunions seem few to none.

And I began despising myself For his dignity I stripped at last, Finding myself desperate for pardon Yet choked on tokens of love.

photo| Yueyang “Matilda” Peng

Dialogue by Yueyang “Matilda” Peng

I left the apartment one afternoon with chilly winds,/ believing I could find more if I gave myself more space./ But I went at the wrong time, between afternoon and night,/ that awkward interim of dusk. So I asked how/ the night is repeatedly too short and the day/ continuously too long; every night interchanges,/ while all days merely shadow the recurrent night./ I did not respond because I was t tearing out/ another page from the miniature journal/ I would give as a present./ After all, my words aren’t plausible enough to be gifts/ but only exist as lifeless marks on the page./ The frugal wind shed all its frigidness on me,/ the sunless cold steadily more numbing./ I asked if I should go home by myself, but it was not yet a long enough walk./

So I kept mincing in the frosty dusk, and kept myself/ silent until desperate came with a desire/ for homely warmth./ I walked more into the woods in the middle of/ the intertwining roads asking myself/ what could have been done to make things right./ Why? To make what right?/

To this question why, I again asked why,/ so I picked up a perfect-looking pinecone/ so pristine, and crushed it with my feet.

art | Maggie Brosnan

Part of me is sleeping by the Columbia River

The rest of me wilts. I have been creased open, only seeing salmon, a glittering run, migrating up a falling ladder, and the vulgar way they climb. I know that despite this the others are fighting in the next room. Are screaming and Nobody is standing to worry for the salmon like I do. (When will they learn the sacrifice of weariness?) They only think how: to win and: to hurt but they are not even thinking of Hurt. Only themselves.

The selfishness of victory never needs to be taught.

What if: silver and meek and blessed, the fish cannot make it back home?

the porch light was left on, the key rusting beneath the mat and the worry growing stale beneath a single living room lamp?

Sometimes I feel that we have chosen to fear the wrong things.

photo | Yueyang “Matilda” Peng

How does the apple’s bruising make it sweeter? Some thanks for the gift of kind fruit.

The ladder seems Difficult and it’s getting Cold. What then? Who then to inherit the earth? Don’t we all deserve to draw a sigh of relief at one time or another? Some pyrrhic victory.

I claw before me for noise, for water, weight. I am starving for a heaviness I have never known.

Only finding the flailing body. Rushing river. Force of the fractured pink flesh– Marred by the jagged northward rocks– I know that it’ll be sweeter once we get to it. Once it is all over.

The rest of me wilts.