Jenny Xie reads the poem “Invisible Relations” from her debut collection, Eye Level, published by Graywolf Press in April.
Invisible Relations
There are no simple stories, because language forces distances. The days
gummy and without drink. And a question stammers in the mind for weeks,
one key aquiver on the piano. In the course of a day, your head will point in
all the cardinal directions. It is good to wake and sleep, to scrape jars with
spoons. Nights, grape popsicles sew sugar into your mouth. Police sirens clean
the air and the TV burns out. Without your knowing, the unseen borders of
your hunger are redrawn.
Far off, you are being stitched into a storyline in the smooth lobe of another’s
mind.
“Invisible Relations” from Eye Level. Copyright © 2018 by Jenny Xie. Used with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.