Constance Yu

Snow forts built of packed wet flour
in a big orange plastic bowl,
S q i u s h
and unfold like an origami fortune
of milky dough and chocolate chips.

Oat milk in the Grecka poured into coffee,
swirled into tree rings, pressed by the scent
of maple macchiato mist arose in the air,
swans painted in latte art, held in a white mug.
My hands burrowed into the warm mug,
leading it to the maple wooden table,

We were lost in the streamers of Aurora Borealis,
the dark starry sky bearing blue butterflies—
to arrive at a wooden bridge over tiny glaciers
between lit wavering candles. An Aurora
flagging your head, says we could maybe
hold each other with your glove on my waist.

There’s a white noise the airplane makes, as the sound of my wails soak my shirt, my hands, tightly put together, attempt to muffle it, yet only the dimly lit airplane would let me hear my voice. My tears would pour over the page, which my thumbs had already crumpled the sides of the letter he wrote to me.

Under the late moon,
Would it be cozy or small?
you drove me with the scooter,
Like the way your write poems,
for trips to 7-Eleven,
in Moleskine notebooks,
it was two in the morning,
the profound way you use words,
with stationery;

Who would not salvage the dust for the poor,
or whatever the change may be for the well-versed men in dollars?
So be it, the Roman giants or Russian oligarchs whom search for vast heaps of green in corporate monasteries,
chime in, fairing equity, for their Wallstreet yachts, oligarch suits, and whatever their norm might be.

The weeping lady in the ivory dress, within the high pitch fever dream,
screams at the kettle with bare feet, while wandering the grasslands.
The blonde man, strolling on top of graves, where the caskets hide, greets her.
He hands her a golden plate of vegetables and offers to peel her skin.