my grandma feeds the cats

 

 
 
 

my grandma feeds the cats in the park even though they don’t know who she is / she’s blind so it’s not like she knows who they are / either / you think she just goes up to them & is like / agesexlocation / i want to be the swampghost passing through her / or canned fish / & greasy palms / in the supermarket everything i touch / is for the first time / i buy a dragonfruit & grope it in the dark / when i swallow it clenches & unclenches / like a beating heart / in other words dying / lasts forever but feels like no time at all / in other words my grandma / speaks to voices in the television until her eyes sting / from the light / shoutout to my grandma squinting at things / like a white cat running through the trees / my suicide pact & belly of thorns / the taxi driver lugging / her sack of flesh / moon cavity sagging down her neck / shoutout to the ennui that comes after i spit / out the blackened seeds / from my latex mouth shoutout to / my cousin who thinks i should stop / eating flower petals & talking so loud / my mother says / ‘letting 奶奶 raise you is regret i take / to the grave’ / inside her grave there is / a disinfected suburbia / the monotony of the sun / a porcelain toilet so i no longer piss / squatting in fields of orchids / & dust mote bones

 
 
 

Angie Sijun Lou is from Seattle. She is a first year PhD student in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her work has been nominated for Bettering American Poetry and the Pushcart Prize.