Three Poems
by Lavinia Liang

january, colors

lonely is
pronounced the way a
baby sucks her teeth

the way an ostrich
soars

how a boy runs when
nobody chases him

tripped over an
old phone wire

nobody saw.
the ocean

is the sky’s mirror.
kitten’s-nose
pink and shot

through with
quiet clouds.

Name Any Girl Who Sleeps Well in July

I sunk in dark
corners and a waste
land of my ribs
appeared, see, count
all the times I held
a treasure hunt
beneath my skin.
Each three marks
a bone, a boon
I did not eat, I did
not eat. At least
when all is said and
done this stolen gold
will tell you a
good a good story.

Again

You haven’t stayed here for spring
yet. You’ve never laughed with the
opening ground, grown old with the
dancing birds. In another time, our
forbears would have called this
trust. Trust that _____ would be kind.
Trust that _____ will come. Blue
crocus, hyacinths and a motion
picture to make you cry. Trust that
you will finish what you must. Trust
that you will find _____ where the
moon hangs heavier than elsewhere.

Lavinia Liang is a writer and an attorney. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, The Atlantic, TIME, the Los Angeles Review of Books, AGNI, and elsewhere.