Helen Gu

Aubade

Just like that, the city swallowed
us whole. Your face so red
and swollen, too scared
to even cry. Yes, we were born
to be ashamed. I held
my palm over your lips
as the nightingale sang. Your voice
was a whisper when you first spoke.
I wanted to protect it.
And when you smiled, toothless
like a fig leaf stripped down
to the vein, I forgot all the wounds
I swallowed for you, the blood
we forgot to wipe away. And I thought
your body would one day stretch
into a girl. And I was scared your body
would spill into a woman.

Listen. When you have a daughter,
you’ll understand how to burn
your body to keep her warm. How
to burn her body to keep her
close. She reaches out her parched tongue,
stretches it far away from the water.
When she comes back home, face
blurred with overgrowth, you’ll remember
that you are still a daughter. All the wounds
your mother swallowed. All the wounds
she spat out.

Helen Gu is a 16-year-old poet based in California. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Eucalyptus Lit, Eunoia Review, Scapegoat Review, and Neologism, among others. She is an alum of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio and has been recognized by the Alliance of Young Artists and Writers, Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate Program, Bay Area Creative Foundation, and more. She is the editor-in-chief of Winged Penny Review. When she is not writing, you can find her obsessively singing opera arias, perfecting her homemade boba drinks, or re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the hundredth time.