you point
your tongue
at my flaws
twelve glass girls
slide off a shelf
in my chest
one for each year|
I’ve committed
your voice
to my mind’s breath
I think too much
of myself
& not enough
of family
you say
loneliness is just
a cold soup of wanting
overturned
onto the empty
bed & left
to dry
like a bone
of stale light
at the end
of December
the musk of rice
from the kitchen
downstairs
if I made myself
any smaller
I’d disappear

Jody Chan is a writer and organizer based in Tkaronto/Toronto. They are a 2017 VONA alum and the 2018 winner of the Third Coast Poetry Contest, judged by Sarah Kay. Their first chapbook is forthcoming in 2018 with Damaged Goods Press, and their poetry is published or forthcoming in BOAAT, Nat. Brut, The Shade Journal, and elsewhere. They can be found online at https://www.jodychan.com/ and offline in bookstores or dog parks.