When You Died
Five years of fireflies in oil; five years of ants gnawing
through red flags; five years of pockmarked suns, your face: each ray, each sweltering August; five years of unraveling, hair loosening from your crown like a rotten tooth; five years of how easy it is to split a frog in two; five years of pollen in your mouth, that bitter buzzing; one year of leeches along the spine, fattening; two years: are rats good to eat? Another year: sun-licked pots; your birth year: the cold bones of a stranger’s hand; the quiet year: no one wants to look at a gaping fish, swallowing water endlessly; the sixth year: to place these flowers on or in the graves? |
Jane Wong’s poems can be found in anthologies and journals such as Best American Poetry 2015, Best New Poets 2012, Pleiades, Third Coast, and others. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Fine Arts Work Center, Squaw Valley, and Bread Loaf. A Visiting Assistant Professor at Pacific Lutheran University, she is the author of Overpour (Action Books, 2016).
Chandra Glick is an artist living and working in New York City. She is the Photo Editor at Artforum Magazine and Faculty at the International Center of Photography. Chandra has taught at Rutgers University and lectured at Hunter College, the School of Visual Arts, and Fashion Institute of Technology. Chandra holds an MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts and earned a BA in visual art from Brown University. Her awards include the Alice Beck-Odette Chairman’s Award from the School of Visual Arts, the Brown University Purchase Prize, a Summer Residency at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and a Residency and Artist’s Grant at the Vermont Studio Center. Chandra’s work has been exhibited at Black Ball Projects, One River Gallery, the Visual Arts Gallery, and X Initiative.