Sometimes I imagine you entering
me, the faint smell
of vinegar and lavender.
And after—
I’m swimming,
up and away.

I am enjoying the ability
to decide—
one day to love you,
the next, to send you away.

I thought I was different from
the squid fleeing,
the sea anemone
cutting through the night.

But spread on my fingertips
is the meat of a taro root
pounded smooth,
its veiny pulp
slippery beneath my touch
on the curve of your shoulder,
slippery along the spine of my mouth,
where my changing words remain.

Even if we were to ride together
on channels of silk,
in clear waters under
a sun of elderberry flowers,
you would find me again
only among the shards,
the rusted and unbroken light.

Angela Siew is a multilingual poet who received her MFA from Emerson College. She has received support from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the City of Boston and the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Salamander, Crab Orchard Review and Art New England and she is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets College Prize.

Identifying as both an Illustrator and Fine Artist, Michelle Stevens graduated with a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design with Honors and a Faculty Choice Award in 2019. She has exhibited work at Fitchburg Art Museum, Clark University, and Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, among many others. She has worked on major art projects for Boston Calling Music Festival, received the 2019 Roddy Drawing Prize at ConcordArt, has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators NYC. Her illustration clients include Joseph’s Bakery, Trillium Brewing Company, as well as musician San Holo and his record label Bitbird.