Justin Chin

Three Poems


Edemame

When she said Edema,
I immediately thought

in my head               Edamame.

           Little green soy bean
           taking swollen root
           in an estrogen lattice
           swell.

Edema takes its root
from Oedipal, which I’m told,
in the 16th Century, meant,
          ‘really great at solving difficult
          riddles, puzzles and word jumbles’

not ‘creepy motherfucker’.



Flightless Songbirds #1

Her piano teacher, she said, told her to keep playing
even if mistakes were made.

                                                 Mine, however, kept
a half-foot wooden dressmaker’s ruler hovering
above the hands on the keys, ready to strike
misfingerings,
           miscues, wrong notes,
                                            unmusic.   Fingers
                                                                            being as fingers are,
mistakes were made.

We learned portamento;

just as our violin cousins in adjoining studios
learned vibrato;
                         under the crushing threat
imposed by needlenose pliers.

                       The music continued.



Leaving Sodom and Gomorrah

I’ve got
the Triple Sec
& the Cuervo Gold.
When we get
to that lime grove,
can you look
back and see
if anyone’s got
the shaker?



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