By T.W. Sia

I love getting married up and down the narrow aisles
of the gas station, peach rings on all my fingers. My gown
trailing behind me like slug juice, as if to say I was here. 

And I love getting up to pee on the plane. Hallways of hands
brushing at my sides like tall ferns. We were all sitting
at the same refectory table in a distant life. Ada asserts that the joy 

of living in the city is to be near many bookstores, each with aisles 
designed by someone else. Your favorite is the one with the most people 
in transit with you. I picture all of us walking slowly  

with our mouths ajar, fingertips brushing on spines. Before sunrise,
I feed wool into a spinning wheel, wood clicking as it turns 
in the grand passage of time. Passing is why I became a poet. I keep conjuring  

the wind, sweeping over orchards I remember. 
The walk to the apartment lined with olive trees, green and fruiting 
in the summer. My father waiting his turn at the stop light.  

I understand lineage years later at the same light. 
A lineage of waiting our turn. Unstoppable lineage. The wet way 
blood goes from the heart. Water dripping from cupped palms. There,  

I’ve seen my reflection change over the years. I keep growing 
into these wrinkles. My father laughed like me too. I have our face
generations have fallen in love with. I want to talk to myself gently. It’s true 

I like my memories without shape, just passing through. Dancing 
like joss paper as it burns. Moving prayer beads in bed.
I dream when I rest, a door creaks open above me,  

the route to find me in every life. Shimmering above every crack 
in the sidewalk, pushing a cart at the Dollar Tree,
staring out the bus window home. Find me there.

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T.W. Sia is from Myanmar. He holds a BA from Swarthmore College and is currently studying medicine at Stanford University. His most recent poems can be found in Sundog Lit, Tab Journal, and elsewhere.