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Feast

Poetry by Dana Fang

That’s right    I was named after a high noon

sun    the women in my family sliced open

the Fall melons     the sweet scraps were thrown

to the dogs    and I arrived     In my family    lives are

chosen for children before they are born and they said I was

going to be a mother     or a doctor     Listen

decide already     I know that kindness is also a kind of

violence     The hand of a lover fondling my breast

so the sounds I’ve bitten     burst onto my tongue

The gunny sack of love emptied again and again

for the possibility of filling it with more    

A woman’s black hair can be mistaken

for a serpent and must always be     maintained    

I mistake the basin of water on the window for

the moon    the flies on my grandmother’s legs

for a blanket    It is not like the history

I have forgotten matters more than the pieces

I remember     where I bruised and why

the sunlight was red on that day I came home

my baba said I wanted     a daughter not

whatever you are

​

Dana Fang is a recent graduate of Oberlin College. They have gone to Chicago solely to be in proximity to their favorite lake, Lake Michigan. Their work can be found in Thin Air Magazine, The Susquehanna Review, The Voices Project, The Plum Creek Review and Wilder Voice. ​