by Janet Jiahui Wu

You have said it. To sleep without love. Same mistake repeatedly. Into the pond icing over. Moorhen with the velvet heads. Ducks that brown. Remove what you shouted. Erase me crawling on my knees. I begged you not to leave. Where did we last watch the world go by together? Was it against our wishes? You can’t see it with your head submerged. The skates sank to the bottom of the lake. Saint Cloud wore blue and gray. I threw the ring away. It is there. Tugged between two branches of the tree. The crows were looking for the gold.

Janet Jiahui Wu is a nonbinary Hong-Kongese-Chinese-Australian visual artist and writer of poetry and fiction. She has published in various literary magazines big or small. She currently lives in South Australia with two sassy fat cats, Puss (in boots) & Pablo (Neruda). She acknowledges that the land on which she stands belongs to the Kaurna people and pays respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.