Helen Gu

Family Gathering As Mother's Pregnancy Cravings

My grandmother taught me a woman’s presence can be
measured in negative space. Which is to say I am
substantial as the empty layers in my mother

’s womb before light swaddled my raisined body
            into deliverance. Every summer in Shanghai, she slices
                        tofu into peppered pillows, drizzles

the skin with red sauce, spilling. Your mother craved this
            a lot when you were pregnant, she tells me.
                        We knew you were going to be a girl.

Sichuan peppercorn scattered across the surface
            like teeth, loosening. My mouth numbs into girlhood. The husk
                        grinds in the mortar until I can taste the spice

stipple on my tongue. Between outline and filament, I am
            spilling body: splayed on the cutting board, barely
                        even meat. Until I am bloodied instead

of plain. I am too numb to feel the measuring tape
cutting into my flesh, to watch it tighten. I am sixteen and still
            too afraid to shrink from girl into woman so I stay

up, simmering inside the clutch of time-
lessness. My grandmother tells me I will never be
as beautiful as I am now. I do not believe

the lipstick-stained knife. It’s cloudy here today, but the sun still beats
through our skin. My grandmother complains about condensation
                         cracking skin barrier: the age spotting

her skin, the severance freckling mine. I touch the sun-streaked, milk-
            stained cheek; in the kitchen, she and I are shrinking.

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.