Yan Zhang

Self Portrait as a Sifter

         What does it feel like
         to be washed over —
        to keep almost nothing?
          Leaf shards sprinkle
             onto my chest — they become
      my skin. Your hand
             finds my waist, shakes me
            so hard lightning ricochets
                through my skull. Still
                  those remains dangle,
                    refusing to let go.

           You peel them
            from my splintered shoulders.

                                   That’s what you do.

              You strip me bare
                    to face the dust
                     that remembers my weight.
                   You stroke the rise
                  of my jagged spine—
                 the bend it learned young—
               until I scatter into that dark channel
        beneath the stove, disappearing
with each flame’s metallic whisper.
         Then, you turn me again.

  Overhead, the waves
     billow: here is the red jujube.
           Here is the hot water.
            My tea. My jujube. My body.
            Everything falls through

          your fingers as you press them
        into the cage of my spine.

                   There. Feel it? The shards

               roughening the stitching
             along my back, the steel wires  
               drawn through my ribs:
                 ninety-nine needles
                  I never pulled out.

Yan Zhang is a student currently residing in Hangzhou, China. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sierra Nevada Review, The Shore, and Rogue Agent, among others. She enjoys matcha lattes, taking long strolls in her neighborhood, observing the changing colors of leaves, and thinking.