Poems

Christine Shan Shan Hou: Two Poems

Harvest

The onion detects
certainty in dirt, on
the contrary, shame

 

Piece of Evidence

a visitor
a settler

a guest
a purveyor

a gift
a psychology

a drawer
for confidential matter

a hand
at striking distance

a frontispiece
an induction

deliberately sloppy
transition

a transgression
a refusal of the future

an important algorithm
an unexpected euphemism

a refusal of the past
an unforeseeable circumstance

a heart grown from plastic
maybe beginning

a family matter
a load of laundry

a habit nurtured into fruition
a health reason

a fruit bowl
but with onions

a refusal
a refusal

a chance
a resignation

a clamoring
for permission

for entertainment
a consideration of the facts

a more modern approach
a dispersion

a monthly allowance
a solution

a reversal of direction
a roll of fat

a roll for later
a discarded piece of furniture

a reinterpretation of a certain age
an urgent affair

a systematic deflection
of the problem

a dewdrop
for succulence

a reversal of a herd
a hurdle

Christine Shan Shan Hou is a poet, artist, and yoga instructor based in Brooklyn, NY. Publications include Community Garden for Lonely Girls (Gramma, 2017), “I’m Sunlight” (The Song Cave, 2016), C O N C R E T E  S O U N D (2011) a collaborative artists’ book with artist Audra Wolowiec, and Accumulations (Publication Studio, 2010). Her poems have been featured in Poor Claudia, Fanzine, Elderly, and iO: A Journal of New American Poetry amongst others.

Image: “Two Bottles in the Form of Pomegranates”