‘Dhuhr, New York City’
— Joyce Chong
it was my fault
i said [leave] & meant [help] but i said [leave]
& when you left i slept a full necklace of days
woke convinced the blood had gone solid in my legs
There’s something in recollection that’s inherently melancholic. Because it’s in the past, because it’s been painted over with everything that’s come afterward. This poem plays itself out in your mind like glimpses from a film you saw long ago. It doesn’t just show you pictures and images and ideas. It transports you somewhere else, where you can feel the afternoon sunlight coming in through the window, see the spaces laid out between the words, between the stanzas, like time parting continents. There are moments of this poem that read like a letter, others like notes to self, re-visitations. I’m not sure how, but it’s the details, the quiet moments that make this poem feel more personal, as if you had been there, or somewhere similar. As if you had felt this before.