what was grown (in the garage)
Isabelle Lu
Isabelle Lu
i.
My father / never nurtured anything / but clay-wrapped things / which—like hands / only unfurled once a year / In the cavern / among them / I bound my knees / Fixed them / with a wax kiss, then coddled all his / gardens. Every cerebral daughter / I thought I’d give forever / crumbled. Some ashen relic of catalytic iron / bypassed good pastor walls / with a knuckled / shiver / How they trembled, my baby gums / the thunder quivering beneath the lid of my throat / Lop tongue / tinged verdant like / their furtive petals / preening the burn skid on each leaf / Locating the ever-absent flesh: no scarlet-run gold / to suckle and thumb / over my chin as I readied to rupture / at another soft palm. I wasn’t made for a caress, I was made to scream.
ii.
the good moon ladles the river.
I stagger onto its bank: nymph but gritting,
dissolved but cartilaginous.
the ants in my marrow unearth no bone memories but how to linger. & I swaying want to ask everything of the water. tonight, just this: why, like my mother, I forgot how to
bloom.
the river keens back her only chore to pass on. all my elegies close
like my father’s cereus.
My father / never nurtured anything / but clay-wrapped things / which—like hands / only unfurled once a year / In the cavern / among them / I bound my knees / Fixed them / with a wax kiss, then coddled all his / gardens. Every cerebral daughter / I thought I’d give forever / crumbled. Some ashen relic of catalytic iron / bypassed good pastor walls / with a knuckled / shiver / How they trembled, my baby gums / the thunder quivering beneath the lid of my throat / Lop tongue / tinged verdant like / their furtive petals / preening the burn skid on each leaf / Locating the ever-absent flesh: no scarlet-run gold / to suckle and thumb / over my chin as I readied to rupture / at another soft palm. I wasn’t made for a caress, I was made to scream.
ii.
the good moon ladles the river.
I stagger onto its bank: nymph but gritting,
dissolved but cartilaginous.
the ants in my marrow unearth no bone memories but how to linger. & I swaying want to ask everything of the water. tonight, just this: why, like my mother, I forgot how to
bloom.
the river keens back her only chore to pass on. all my elegies close
like my father’s cereus.
what was grown (in the garage) is originally published in Kalopsia Literary Journal in June of 2021.
//
Isabelle Lu is a Chinese-American writer from New York. She currently attends South Side High School, where she is the co-editor of Context literary magazine. In her daily life, she may be found doodling and enthusing about books to unsuspecting innocents.
Isabelle Lu is a Chinese-American writer from New York. She currently attends South Side High School, where she is the co-editor of Context literary magazine. In her daily life, she may be found doodling and enthusing about books to unsuspecting innocents.