PREY by Lyn Li Che


your hands moved through me           like water

yet here I am                                                                  still unable to dive

into my monsoon                                    mouth stained metallic

by bullets and blood                                                     come springtime

I rust                                                           leach lead into the hollows

of your bones                                                                  fingers red-tipped and riveting

picture me a prayer                                  picture me the rope

from which you’ll hang             the mosque-dome of my skull – 

my antlers polished                                  to a knife-edge

sharpened to a tongue                                                    you’ll use to lick yourself 

as clean as a throat                                    or a promise

made to a small child                                                       not yet old enough 

to understand                                            sugar doesn’t mean sweetness

or that an open hand                                                        is only

an invitation                                               to drown

Lyn Li Che is from Malaysia. Her poems have been published or are upcoming in Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, BOAAT, Michigan Quarterly Review, Waxwing, Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and others. She currently lives in New York City, where she works in tech strategy.