california grievances
Cloris Shi
morning comes and poppies clink in fever, the high-pitch shiver of empty glass bottles just off a tilted mouth.
it is how a fish gasps for milk not water in california. how here, if you squint hard you might mistake this
polluted shoreline for cow dairy. this pandemic, i’ve learned how it is to need, kneed, knead, egg-washing my
yellow skin tan and brown, then smoothing myself white, whipped cream farting out of a plastic bag into the
shape of roses. lately, i pour vinegar to cake batter and wonder if this is it: to accentuate and not be tasted, an
acid and wanted, just to feel the tangy buzz of unaccountable or to know if this is depth of flavor. lately, i add
salt to prolong the sugar-high if only to swallow in a longer list of artificial possibilities. in this country, it is
easier for me to lower my head, in the same way eating is almost like praying, or kneeling, or suffocating, the
windpipe always slapped shut. along a nature trail, the sun’s kiss stings the peach tips of succulents to black -
the shade of stomped bubblegum stuck on concrete, and i am standing unprotected, bare skin burning,
pumping the bike till it pops airfull of a past. i’ve learned that some plants aren’t supposed to grow here, for
what is there more to blame when i have learned to blame a place. sometimes i reason with death and call it a
trimming, watch blood ooze from a crushed rhubarb stem and lick it with strawberries. dry dry state, i have
forgotten the different synonyms we use for thirst, and even the potted lonely worry about heat. in this soil, i
know so little but to be grafted and forget my parched roots, or to grow spines as adaptation. what can i do
but swell these weeds with salt and secrets, if only to pull them out, these roots cracking the house
foundation, pop-up garden wall springing closed.
Cloris Shi is a poet from southern California. Her work is published or forthcoming in Eunoia
Review, Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, BreakBread Literature, Élan Magazine, The Foredge Review, and other places. You can find her on Twitter at @ClorisShi, where she tweets about poetry.