Manscaping

In middle school ceramics, my teacher
mistook my turtle for a deformed teapot.
She punched a hole through its face

to let the water out. I made a temple,
too, but gave it blue ribs and a dome
without a mouth to let the whispers out.

Naked, a youth in a city square submits to
alchemy: tourists squeeze his junk and leave
a golden stain. An ocean away, I work to erase

our clients’ residue. The rasp of steel
wool and suds beard my wrist. I hold
my fortune under the water, which

burns the skin clean. Fluorescent light
congeals across my china-slick pores.
I am lacquered, no longer knowing

what color I keep beneath
today’s shoddy apron.

White Hair Silver Needle

It was like a graveyard if all the graves
were gone. It was like a yard but not
my yard anymore. I was like a grave

or a vacancy replaced. Like ashes
tumbling backward to the urn since
recycled to pot this new season’s

hope. I am not that hope.

I am one flower, crisp with its wilting.
No. I am only one oblique bud, dried

and curled to gather years—too young
to fetch attention, too withered to turn

the water green. Still, in water, I will open.
I will echo honey, when the water comes.

This piece is part of the Summer 2026 issue.