Jinhao Xie

Jinhao Xie was born in Chengdu. Their poetry has appeared in POETRY, Poetry Review,

Gutter Magazine, Harana, Bath Magg, Spilled Milk Magazine, and elsewhere.

Connect with Jinhao: Instagram @xie.jin.hao Twitter @jinisnotfound

moonlight

in my dream. I hold hands with my brother. we are both boys: he looks at me through his thick lashes. a squint. three years of time travel, between him and me.

we are blue boys. he looks like my future, and I am his past. three years. time holds us together in summer and it’s always summer in my dream.

my future and his past are nothing but a smudge. his free from worry glint of summer. always summer when I dream of him. we laugh. we blow up cowpat in dad’s village. a punch:

a smudge is his free from worry glint as if graphite glides past his cheeks. look! how our laughter blooms, in dad’s punch. I stand by him, hold on to his soft hand.

graphite draws wind blowing past our cheeks. I look at him—through our thick lashes— our shoulders barely touch, tiny hand in tiny hand. and there it is, where my brother’s stubborn heart beats.

I look through him, behind his thick curtains of lashes. we are both boys for once: looking ahead. his stubborn heart laughs with mine. so loud. I wake up. and there! my brother is the moon: watching over me.

(first appeared POETRY magazine September Issue 2021)

You hold my hand along Oxford street

You hold my hand along Oxford street, and I am your child again. Still feeling the guilt for not picking you up at Heathrow. We are accustomed to missing unions like that. Life isn’t scripted TV shows. You say, licking strawberry ice cream off your hand. Knowing

how you came for my graduation – from Chengdu to Canterbury – knowing the flights, the trains and the waiting –Knowing that your body barely spoke enough language to ask for help. Knowing that you had to salvage sorry-s and thank you-s from my nursery rhymes. Knowing your wit, I am not surprised that you managed to arrive.

Right now, I am angry that you are tired. Too much of following my footsteps, you complain, crouching on a bench by the river Thames. Too eager to love, I accuse you like you once did me. I want you to see everything, everything I’ve seen. You take off your pumps and suck in air as the blisters kiss your heels like the sun.

Gesturing me to sit next to you and tenderly you speak like a poet, my dear, be my eyes to see the world and be my ears to listen to all the songs.

Poems from

Haig Lucas Susanna Demelas L. Kiew Medha Singh Devki Panchmatia Olivia Thomakos Jennifer Wong Magnus Mcdowall Flora Leask Emma Dodd Jinhao Xie

Curated by

Tim Tim Cheng