You cried & rode
the back of a question
till the crying
rode you
Rode you & rode
till the sun
had your face & so
shone right through
the trees (trunks n all)
sun through trees
sun through trees
sun through trees
It was terrible there was
no shade no picnic blankets
spread beneath no fruit eaten
absentmindedly while reading
no reading under
any tree neither solitary
nor to one another
while raspberries & peaches
no one sat feeling
the flirty tickle of a breeze
there was no breeze
there were no books
though always there was
there shone
a reading light
& everyone was legible
terribly unmysteriously legible
everyone
to everyone
thanks to your face
which never set
Chen Chen is the author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions), a best book of 2022 according to the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, and others. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions), was long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award and won the 2018 Thom Gunn Award. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. He teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch.
