Back to Issue Fifty-Eight

CODA

by XU LI

after Shakespeare’s Sonnet CIII

I take away and take away—subtract, like

a departure of birds to reveal a tree and pond in winter.

Mornings, I peer in the glass for my own face, her flat and bared expression.

Of the honesty in his mirror, Shakespeare describes his self-portrait, over-going.

There’s the writer you are and the writer you want to be, a friend used to say over a beautiful table.

To touch with language feels less possible these days.

Monday, police deploy another round of flash bangs into the crowd, light after marred light.

Whatsoever that changes you, the trees, and water in winter

is both easy and hard to describe.

The lyric can contain a fervor, yes.

The lyric is a continuity, yes.

When the sun rises over our morning, it is carving and carving.

 

Xu Li s a writer and educator born in Beijing and raised in southeast Michigan. She holds a MFA degree in creative writing from Arizona State University and was a recipient of the 2023 Kathryn Blair Swarthout Fellowship for poetry. Her work has been supported by the Blue Mountain Center and Tin House Summer Workshop. Alongside writing, she’s taught and mentored K-12 and university students in literature, composition, and creative writing. She lives in Los Angeles.

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