Poetry By Wenqi Yeh

theory of mind

Living Alone

After Li-Young Lee’s “Eating Alone”

In the brackets where the raspberries 

mold is a history of all my mother ever said. 

Meanwhile, a fish sobs scales from my hands

to the linoleum. A lemon tangs brighter 

than a voice and the water boils fast. I am 

bowing in the entryway to this sanctum.

Not what they say about women and kitchens. 

My work is in the peeling of bone. Hours praying 

over a stock pot humming my soul into milky 

reflection. Scallion and ginger thinner than paper 

of the letter in the house I write to me. No, 

I am not making a sandwich. I am taking 

the world upon my chopping board. Bending it over.

Collapsing it to tender. Juicing between the teeth 

on a Thursday afternoon. Or what is to say that

carrots cannot offer in such sweet fracture. I grow 

basil under the light of my own moon in the same pot 

as four Thai chilis glowing red and wanting. 

By the eastern wall underneath my mulberry 

tree the silkworms begin to bud.