poem
Volume 25, Number 4

An Apology

In the heaving slick of winter we march rhythmic bent and streaming. It is dawn, and so we are comfortless, dreaming of saving people who forget they need to be saved, wrapped with dissonance worn coats, loading ourselves like guns, listening for sharpness. Tell me there is sharpness, the sky is the white of bone and sunken with prayers, shucked soft and still. It is so still, its big face pressed against the air, and yesterday my brother found a hole in his stomach, and I know that that is where air lives, in the space between someone else’s fingers. He told me he tripped on something he couldn’t see, and I am tired of pretending, and sorry, the sun spitting red and morning.


—Emily Zhang