Read More: A brief Q&A with Xiaoly Li
New Year
Are you time,
or are you space?
Or dark matter’s ghost?
You come
as you are,
to face icy snow.
When dark energy passes,
I remain entangled
in the 5% of what I see.
I”ll not make new resolutions,
that can’t be held.
The past is enough to digest.
Children should be a certain way.
Adults should be wiser.
Why am I not where I want to be?
Perhaps I do understand you,
below zero—winter,
the seed of spring.
I’ll let you through me,
loose my fixed mind.
I’ll love what is.
Spiral
I don’t believe
there’s only one way
to trace a spiral—
the double helix
in our DNA
is our universe—
as the pattern left in the sand
when ocean recedes.
You were not there for me before;
Don’t try to influence me now, you say.
A downward spiral.
After many years
I am still your mother—
using our home-grown herbs […]
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Father
Morning haze covers the winding road
that won’t reach you. It stops in the wood.
As a girl, I’d ride your shoulders to swim.
Now we video chat, your hair, silk white.
Beside my Mac, my betta fish, I call Moon Child,
stares at me. I wish you would say what you can’t.
Years ago, I’d bring a cup of tea for you, father.
You shouted, Don’t interrupt my work.
Today, we are eager to talk.
Wish we had talked more in the past, you say. […]
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Xiaoly Li is a poet and photographer in Massachusetts. She is the author of the poetry collection, Every Single Bird Rising (April 2023, FutureCycle Press). This collection was a finalist for the Zone 3 Press Book Award and a semi-finalist for the Trio House Press Book Award and the 2022 Laura Boss Poetry Foundation Narrative Poetry Award. She received an Artist Fellowship Grant in Poetry (2022) from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has been nominated for Best New Poets, three for a Pushcart Prize, and four times for Best of the Net. Her poetry has been featured or anthologized in Spillway, American Journal of Poetry, Salamander, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, Rhino, Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, Verse Daily, etc. Her photography has been shown and sold in galleries in Boston. Xiaoly received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and her Master’s in computer science and engineering from Tsinghua University in China. She lives in Massachusetts.
“Spiral” originally appeared in The Ollive Press. “Father” and “New Year” originally appeared in Gravel Magazine.
Read More: A brief Q&A with Xiaoly Li