Grace Marie Liu​
​

That Time

I was apologizing before I learned
to whistle. Then, I was a chronic hummer.
I was starfished in March with nothing
to lose but my head. I was theorizing
the direction of the wind–perpendicular to my mother.
Mitski said There’s nothing left for you so I skipped
stones in Lake Michigan and lived
off birdseed and hummus. So what if I couldn’t
swim? I was constructing boneyards
between campgrounds. I was writing
ghosts like skeletons like contrails like lacunas
between my thighs, then rewriting myself in
-to something tiny, something tapered. The tally
marks corroded, the days slow and whittling.
No one looked for me. I know, I know, I know.

Taxidermy
Between a grass blade of                          snowfall and birdsong, my mother
               teaches me​               ​               ​               ​     to slick white
      cream across my legs. It ends                                                       with my thighs
                                                   ​               ​               ​     snapped shut and her shriek
                             skittering across the tiles                                                       like wildfire.
               I am always                                                                 the watchdog, or witch, or heart
​                                                                        -less daughter.
                                                                                              Still, my mother knows apology
       as in hunger, takes me to dinner                       only to run
                                                                                                                   over a greyhound. I do not
                             cry, only watch                                             its yellow tongue spill
               from its jaw--                                             how its paws
                                                                                                                   plant themselves into cement                                                                                                                                              like wildflowers. She leaves her ribs in Texas
               Roadhouse.                                                               That night, I witness
                                       my mother stab each baby's
breath                                                                         into a freckled jar, splintering
                                           sunflower seeds between her                            canines. My self-help books
         advised me to think fresh                                                    -water and grow
                                   fat on fried eggs and raw milk.
                                                                                                   Naturally,                         I forgot
               about dead animals,                                                                  the lot of them.
                                                                                                   But spring came early
       ​and I bailed,                                             again. I didn't want                                         to burn.
--
Grace Marie Liu is a Chinese-American poet from Michigan. A 2024 YoungArts National Winner with Distinction in Poetry and an alumna of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Minnesota Review, Sundog Lit, and Up the Staircase Quarterly, among others. She serves as an Editor-in-Chief for Polyphony Lit.