Termination Notice

I saw you stealing cherries when you worked the orchard. You rode a motorbike to carry boxes to the pickers and carried the boxes away when they were full. When the pickers disappeared between the lines of trees, you dipped your hand into a case of dark pearls and set the fruit on your tongue like a pill. I saw the face you made as it burst between your teeth. Summer sweet. Exactly like you’d dream.

Heatwave

Three days that did not hold their shape.
In an amber gloom, I waited for anything –
my mother to call, perhaps, or
an act of murder on the street.

Meanwhile, the sweat was slicking
my skin into mirage. Gather me up,
begged the spill of my body.
Never learned how, said
the apology of yours.

Out of habit, still, you
reached for my knee –
and watched, astonished,
as I flickered away from view.

Basement Creatures

There was a hole in the plaster we called the Belly.
No light shone from it, but a rush of cool air
was always slipping through. Something
was always slipping – my body
towards yours, your language
towards mine, flat
champagne down both our throats.
Dizzy with sugar, we swayed under pink
lamplight, glistening within a saccharine song,
encircled by haloes of moths. Later, sick of being
holy, you trapped those tremulous forms beneath jars
of glass, then released them, a shower of fluttering stars.

AnQi Yu was born in Zhaoyuan, Shandong, China and grew up in West Virginia and Western Colorado. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting & Film Directing at Columbia University.