Sophie Yu

I Knew You Before I was Born

After Li-Young Lee

i knew you before i was born.

i felt your warm palm
against my chest, searching
 for a hum, something more
  than a pulse.

under a sky full of obsidian and fog
you held me, gently
  placed me on a bed, uprooted
  with the weeds and dirt, pieces
  of a child’s broken kaleidoscope.

you called me
in the middle of winter, silently
nestled in the womb.

you are a ghost dressed in scarlet
as you build fairy houses
with torn limbs and pebbles.

  you are a million flickering
  stars i cannot see.

  sometimes i want to lie, buried
  with you fifteen feet
  beneath the snow.

you are cold and unmoving
and sometimes you are whispering
and other times you are
still dead.

 my lips are yours but painted
 blue, twitching.

do you like to play chess
with switchblades and flesh?
clasp your hands in prayer
around marbled jade and rosewood
beads your grandfather gifts you
nine years later while you’re learning
to read my mind.

Sophie Yu (she/her) is a student poet at Phillips Exeter Academy and a New Hampshire Teen Poet Laureate. She is a published author of two poetry collections, as well as the co-founder of Nova Literary Magazine. She is also an alumna of the Sewanee Young Writers Conference and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers Program. Her work has been featured in Spotlong and Eunoia Reviews, and recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, both regionally and nationally. This past summer, she served as an intern for the Academy of American Poets. If you can’t find her in a warmly lit cafe, she is most likely scrapbooking in her room with jazz blasting and a hot cup of jasmine tea brewing on her nightstand.

Literary Magazine: https://www.novalit.org/