20 March, 2020: Cleo Qian

New York City, USA

DIVINING POEM FOR A QUARANTINE NIGHT

                                                                          after Liu Waitong
 
The green bottle on the ledge has been there since spring.
 
The plant we thought dead put out a single new green shoot.
 
At night we read poems, put on music and go painting.
 
Under the living room lights I forget it’s been three days.
 
I have seven cans of tuna I don’t know what to do with.
 
At the kitchen sink I scrub my inner forearms clean,
 
blow smoke into the silence of my company.
 
Maybe the taste of disappointment is like Nutella.
 
I try to be serious, but I’ve forgotten not laughing.
 
I turn around and find a toothpick right when I need it.
 
So many years to continue on, we’d thought,
 
and the person you want to call never calls. 


Cleo Qian is a writer based in New York.