Yellow-morning

by Abigail Chang

Yellow-morning

with too-heavy sun.

Feeling sick from lethargy and not enough oranges.

A mother dialing back your fingers
splashing them quiet and brown.
All the trees praying down at your porch.
The sound of water.

                Eating citrus from a bowl. Light.
                Your hair twisted into a crown. Light.

                 Looking for a father. Putting up a call for
                 two fathers, no fathers.
                 Mornings biting at my skirts.

Kings and queens
lined up for execution.
The wooden porch beneath me.
The blue of the lake.

No mothers to slip me their pearls.
I ask for a mother.

In the pooling dark,
I eat for sun people and their heavy, heavy heads.

Around us,
behind the water,
pines.
Initials on a trunk.

A sun crawling across a green sky.
Begging for a mother and the privilege of swallowing.
Meringues hanging from my fingers.
I can’t see a thing.

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Abigail Chang is a writer based in Taipei, Taiwan. She edits for Polyphony Lit, reads for the Puritan and harbors a severe artificial tea addiction. Her work is forthcoming at Parentheses Journal and MAYDAY. She can be found at twitter & instagram @honeybutterball.