‘Cross/Bite’
— Joyce Chong
I grind my teeth at night
wake to white sand in my mouth:
nocturnal silt, gritty loam.
As much a visual and aural experience as it is a poem, ‘Cross/Bite’ is a exercise in contemplation, something self-reflexive that gives way to new lenses with which to view the self. The sharp division of the lines creates a tentative structure, the verse runs across sharp ridges of architecture, building upon one another while remaining strictly bisected. It leaves the sensation of balanced asymmetry. The towering language and vivid imagery builds its own sense of rhythm, an echo of the body’s rhythm, the sound of the imperfect, the unexpected. The way we forget that biology can create its own poetry.
Oh, the typewriter in my bones—
yes, I would miss that click/clack the most