American Sonnet

By Vanessa Y. Niu

​I am finally understanding Edward Hopper’s strange
pictures of people uninhabited, a diner of bodies for
lease. My last date called me Death’s Dog and N. Scott
Momaday named Death’s Dog Time, but I can’t put
together the last time I was able to distinctly remember
a Tuesday from meimei’s funeral, or grandmother’s
burial, for that matter. People who study the brain (the
many of them, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, psych-etc)
say it’s easy to make connections where there aren’t any
but I know that Camus’ Stranger was the same man in
the fedora in Nighthawks. He’d just received the news
Mama’s dead. And he’s alive. And I am condemned
for my fascination with death and I am alive and because
I am alive there must be something more to it than this.

---

American Ghazal (Not Coming Home Tonight)

By Vanessa Y. Niu

Not coming home tonight. Tonight you will
take the container from the fridge, close the fridge
door, make sure it actually closed, transfer the soup
from the container to the bowl, put it in the
microwave, heat it up, take the bowl out and into
the dining room, pull up a chair and listen to the
silence around you, listen for any noise from the
kitchen, stop because you are conflicted between
being scared and being hopeful that something will
actually sound, put the bowl down, and drink the
soup alone.
 
Tonight you will want to drink orange
juice and take the carton from the fridge, close the
fridge door, make sure it actually closed, transfer
the juice from the carton to the glass, put the carton
back in the fridge, making sure it actually closed,
and bring the glass into the dining room, pull up a
chair and listen to the silence around you, listen for
any noise from the kitchen, stop because you are
conflicted between being scared and being hopeful
that something will actually sound, put the glass
down, and drink the juice alone.
 
Tonight you will watch
YouTube videos explaining how to break the
dissatisfaction cycle, how to be happy, then watch
other people doing productivity vlogs, going out,
watching sunsets, drinking expensive drinks,
working out, taking care of their skin, making
healthy meals, journaling and setting goals, doing
yoga, winding down, hanging with friends, and you
will think about why you are not doing all of those
things, look at the clock, tell yourself it’s getting too
late and you will start tomorrow, that tomorrow will
be sunnier anyway, that the motivation will come
quick then, and finish eating alone.
 
Tonight you will take your empty bowl and glass to
the kitchen, set them in the sink, go take a shit, scrub
your hands to wash your dishes, squeeze dish soap on
to the sponge, rub it around so the foam is visible and
affirms that it didn’t just disappear, start wiping the
sponge around the rim of the glass, mistake the clinking
of its stem on the ceramic bowl for the jingling of keys
outside, pray that someone is coming home, or that a
neighbor has come home and will need to borrow some
sugar or salt or an egg, remember that you’re out of eggs,
realize that after you stopped moving the sound stopped
and that it was just the glass’ stem on the bowl’s ceramic,
become disgruntled, quickly scrub down the bottom
of the glass and dish the suds for the bowl, rinse off the
foam, put them on the drying rack face down, and go
to bed alone.

---

desert dialogue

By Vanessa Y. Niu

in the east we look forward to the
spirals. they will take us to heaven,
where the terraced waters glisten like
salt and the carpets are red silks. my
 
head is one flame all the way there,
i am the torch lighting the black night,
the red-headed trogon finding the
freshwater in the denseness of oak and
 
bamboo. the desert mist emerging from
nai nai’s mouth as she prays the fifth
sun down the dunes. if hou yi failed
to reason with the suns and i see nainai
 
turn the earth by letting the sand fall
through her fingers, i will never believe
in any other god but her again. we turn
milk blue as she wakes, as the
 
sun lifts again from the ladle of her
eyelids, a red yolk wavering on the
horizon. i say something about our
sun at home looking rounder and
 
we keep looking east because home
is no longer behind the tracks blown
over by the winds but in the spirals.
i say something about wondering what
 
these spirals look like and nainai says
redemption and the voice of a-yun
jiejie before she went crazy and before
the rain stopped. i say something
 
about missing the rain and wonder
if redemption feels like the coolness
of the first drop breaking on dry skin,
the cries of joy, the sky is grieving with
 
us. imagine the spirals taking us to
the source of the fattest drops. i say
something about releasing them from
the sky’s net so that our tomatoes back
 
home will grow better than if allah
raised them. nainai is silent for some
time and the world hushes with her,
then she says that the rain will drown
 
the rice paddies. the way she says
drown, and i know we are never going
back. i mourn for our tomatoes.

---

duplex deconstructed

By Vanessa Y. Niu

there is a murmuring, a rustling
among the women tonight. they
 
are talking about the next extinction,
they are reading the stars, it is there,
 
when you turn off the gas lamps,
like a scab, itching to be ripped from
 
the skin, like a daughter, the women
are reading the stars, there it is
 
a daughter undone by ecological
prophecy, the cosmic unkindness of
 
finiteness, there is a murmuring
among the stars, glittering through
 
the eaves of tree branches, wailing
with the foxes, foxglove in the stars,
 
ibexes, surely means death by
flood, the women bet among themselves,
 
if a fig falls from its tree tomorrow
like a scab, surely we will be undone
 
like prophecy. there is a rustling in
the universe tonight, talking

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​Vanessa Y. Niu is a Chinese-American poet and classical singer who lives in New York City. Her poetry has been featured in The Amsterdam Review, Frontier Poetry, Stonecoast Review, and more. As a studying musician, she can be found experimenting with poetry-to-music relationships and has written text for the modern composition scene at Juilliard (NY and Tianjin), Interlochen (MI), and the Purcell School (London, UK).