the rebeginning of hangzhou

Janice Lin, United States

i.

our skin took on the fire of hangzhou—

shang you tian tang xia you su hang, mortal bodies

contour heaven with their own hands. time scorches

but never burns. the embers settle in our lungs.

ii.

an annual unraveling: ash gathering on epochs

sewn into a patchwork of memories. mother pulls at the mask fastened

to her neck. a clattering lie; home is a birthplace. the seams

of future, picked apart with worn hands. contradictions slide down her throat.

i divest mosaics from sunburned earth, remnants of my mother tongue.

iii.

duan qiao choked by temporal visions, sticky

heat clinging to pedestrian sight. generations folding

like umbrellas under shade. thousands of lives

ago, immortals stole the shadows beneath our eyes, pressed

searing forever into our lips.

iv.

leifeng-ta is a ghost flickering at night. a hazy reminiscence

to forget predecessors crumbling at the spine. mortal heaven is an ephemeral

flame, built paper-thin foundation over foundation. kaleidoscopes of memory are

twisted and pulled like twine. heaven’s permanence presides, a tapestry over thread.

forgotten, unanswered: recollections fallen before mother’s time.

v.

when immortal was a question, a monk crushed a white snake

under leifeng’s painting of endless, a weight sculpted by mortal hands.

tell me, white snake, when leifeng fell, did you spring from its depths?

tell me, white snake, did its rebirth imprison you again?

has your story become an eternal memory

repeating, smoldering into depth?

Janice Lin is a student from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work is forthcoming or published in Polyphony Lit and Beaver Magazine, and she also edits for some literary magazines. In her free time, she enjoys worldbuilding, theorizing about TV shows, and trying new boba shops with her friends.