Ziyi Yan

Focal Length

the moon can’t right itself
more glass will

peel away its light, which
isn’t as stolen

as i think. dandelion,
how to tug you

to starts or dandruff
i only wait

for dark. i tear
daisies

for my sister. i weave
a crown mostly

of trodden grass
to tickle

or reach at itself.
mom’s orchids can

handle ice, not water.
you can’t find any

retort to breakage:
it’s not created,

just rearranged.
all these bodies

i can’t stop.
these weeds,    

all we can plant.
flowers

ring graves. knock
wood. mean not

what you say:
touch not

stars, but
the ice

in them. 

Ziyi Yan (闫梓祎) is a young Chinese writer living in Connecticut. She is an alumnus of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio and the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards on a national level. She is published or forthcoming in Kissing Dynamite, Polyphony Lit, elementia, Breakbread Literacy Project, eunoia, The Monitor, Paper Crane Journal, and others. She is the winner of the Piedmont Institution Communications Contest, the Marymount Manhattan Poetry Prize, and the Lillian Butler Davies Communications Contest for poetry. She is also a poetry finalist for the Villena-Aldama Writing Contest and the editor in chief of the Dawn Review. You can find her on Instagram @Ziyiyan___