Nova Wang
Golden Shovel of “The Moment I Saw a Pelican Devour” by Paige Lewis
we met with your hands / on the steering wheel, gods buried in the
back seat of your second-hand truck whose dashboard clock froze each moment
at 4:03 am, but you liked it because that’s when birds / awaken, day opening like a beak. i
rubbed the dial. wondered how you lived / on the crest of dawn, if you saw
sunrise streak through your windshield all day, the horizon a
slash / of red. you said you preferred seabirds—a pelican
for every mile—because they are loyal / only to themselves. devour
light with their wings, unbounded to sea, earth, air. a
case study in escape. there were no pelicans there, but a seagull
crested above us, feathers suffused with sun, and you spread your arms into wings
so wide i thought you captured flight. that night, i dreamt everything / was swallowing
everything else: truck subsumed by sky, sweat salting our mouths, wings
enveloping your body as sunbeams haloed / the seats. when i
woke, night spilled oil-thick through the room because my feet hadn’t learned
to walk toward dawn, each sunset doubled / back and prolonged. that
was what you taught me: a minute collapses in your fist. a
day is merely a unit of sun, august stretched thin and light. a miracle
is anything that solidifies / in your mouth and emerges whole, born bright by spit. this is
to say that the last time i jump-started your truck, i would have done anything
to scavenge another year. unwound each clock. strangled / everything that
flew. i would have walked into the atlantic palms-up, waiting for god
to spit a slower sun, held us at high tide as foam stilled our watches’ hands. what i forgot:
tide drowns cliffs in salt. hours know / no pause. but what if we cast our broken birds to
the sand? what if you parked, and we watched the clock ‘til night, its movement already forbidden?
Nova Wang
Golden Shovel of “Perihelion: A History of Touch” by Franny Choi
after getting my license, i stand in my room and practice / ways to crash. no
learner’s manual, so i experiment: shoulder first, or hip, or backward—skull split, moon
-light steeping the cracks. every shard aglow. you told me to avoid crashes in
the first place—just look ahead and drive—but you held / consequences out of sight,
turned your face as dead ends approached. i know how / to recognize a one-way street, so
-ft in its arrival, brutal in its end. how motion chokes against the brake and i
never learned to stop / without skidding, tires inching toward flight, gravel a howl
against the doors. still, in secret, i drive mountain tunnels and picture churning steel, at
-trition of metal against stone. land succumbing to will. in the
evening, i strike my fists / through plaster, break a door in every wall. i don’t know any exits
that aren’t also entrances. i open my mouth and wait / for something to emerge: stop sign,
wing, exhaust boiling out of a truck. car accidents consume the news, and i watch flames instead
of headlines, fenders and hoods buckling like girls / on their knees, bodies red
-efined by prayer. isn’t that the danger of leaving? explosions a turn away, no runes
among the wreckage? tell me: were you even here / if you left nothing behind? electric
storm, and i said stay / in the car, lightning will roll off the roof, but i wanted to tell
you it might be cramped here, but isn’t it worse outside? learn to an
-ticipate electrocution before it strikes, flames before they burn. isn’t it better to grow old
among dust than not at all? now, i brake / and watch roadkill rot to tar, reveal their story
of decay. vultures splay their wings, circling like mothers / around a grave, of
-fering their palms in apology. what i mean is: i wish i grabbed your arm before you escape
-d into the lightning-veined night, clouds crackling like a hundred miles of
static. i wish i had a remote to pause / these skies, change the channel, cut the wind.
i promise, thunder is quieter if we cover our ears. lightning is just a
flash if we close our eyes. what i mean is: i wish your dreams weren’t so wide,
wish you sat with me in the back seat instead of running out, spinning through the cold.
Nova Wang
Golden Shovel of “Scheherazade” by Richard Siken
maybe if i apologize enough, i can release / my crimes. toss them into these
fountains so they join the pennies scaled against tile, faces blurred beyond our
grasp. you said that’s the price / of memory, and i wondered how many bodies
are buried in our pasts. how long until we fade into the future, possessed
by wind. this was supposed to be a love poem. i thought by
now, i’d speak / without bittering my mouth. i’m still sorry about the light,
about the way it sutured the sky, too bright / to hold. here. tell
me all the ways you learned to swim, the world a kaleidoscope me
-lding your limbs. tell me how / the sun doesn’t set in alaska. how we’ll
go there next summer, lying under the gleam of ice, never
needing to sleep. i’m sorry for still faulting the light. i can’t get
away from its cruel glow, its warmth, the wishes / you used
to whisper from the dirt. but tell me anyway, about the sun to
-eing the water, the faces laughing / beneath. i promise, this time i’ll see it.
