By Baylina Pu

We were making mojitos 
in the kitchen when we found 
a  mortar and pestle made of 

Marble. With them, I crushed mint leaves 
and later, slices of lime 
four or five at a time. My friend 

Mixed in sugar, the water 
we’d carbonated ourselves, and 
white rum with a wooden spoon 

In a stainless-steel bowl. 
That evening, the sun was 
setting through the Japanese maple 

By the porch, and leaves 
had slid down the car windshield 
like paper cut-outs. I felt 

Grown up, a real woman. At dinner, 
there were eleven of us crowded 
around the table, beside 

A glass door which looked out 
over the lake, still unfrozen 
even in November. We licked brown 

Sugar off the rims of our glasses. 
My hands could still feel the weight 
of that marble mortar, an invention of 

The Stone Age. Even as early 
as then, happiness had already 
been discovered: simple movements of 

Grinding and stirring. Somewhere, desire 
was calling, but we were so deep 
in the woods nobody heard it. 

---

Baylina Pu graduated from Yale in 2023. She has read for The Yale Review and Columbia Journal, and her work has been published in the Michigan Quarterly Review Online, Black Warrior Review Online/Boyfriend Village, Dirt, The Yale Literary Magazine, and more. She is currently pursuing an MFA at Columbia University, where she received the Felipe De Alba Fellowship for her writing. You can find her at baylinapu.com.