Dinner Frames
By Jessica Zhao
In the restaurant —
the watercress crested
room, a light stammers
and spills over, splintering
your glasses into specks of bone
white and medicinal you
remind me I am an
understudy of every body,
who was ever buoyed by the same
salt tide, hard for me to swallow
but anyway, premeditated.
I am back in the restaurant, you
are perfuming yourself with
salami roses and I am so
distracted with scent I barely react
when you tell me you are glad I can write
poems. I think maybe you are gladder
there are people out here to digest
your tenderness, your loneliness
and rearrange them into bodies,
ostensibly human, rippling on the
framed canvas next to our
on-the-house rye.
Bodies like silverfish
and stretching towards the sun.Jessica Zhao is a high school junior from Vancouver. She is an alumna of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio and the Adroit Summer Mentorship. When she isn't writing, you can find her going on long walks or listening to Fleetwood Mac.
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what a talent. Can't wait to hear more from Jessica.
a light stammers
and spills over, splintering
your glasses into specks of bone
white and medicinal you
Love "bodies like silverfish."