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poems by

lee beltrand chan

Confluence

Our voices are lost in trees above this water-cut trench,
its meandering path our only guide to family
and to the small cottage lost to us
in the depths of the Vermont wilderness.
In the fading light, the small frames
of my sister and me, each utterly alone
except for a tightly grasped hand,
slog through a gauntlet of buzzing, eager, pinpricks,
while itching our naked limbs and itching to wake up
from this dream where even the sun shuns us
as we fade away into the biting darkness.

And now I'm awakened from that dream
as a lone voice finds my ears, yelling
that I won't have time to finish my breakfast,
but I don't stir, letting myself
sink into my bed,
trying to grasp for that dream
or, a more lucid one
where my sister is right across the hall
and we are both being awakened
by the same chorus of voices,
and that half my family
is not halfway across the country,
that siblings are not alone
passing swiftly along this stream of time
wherein we find ourselves lost.

Haemophilia

The way to live through summer
is to drink the blood of the air conditioner
as it pours into the room
and over your body.

Follow its vein to the outlet,
and across vast, buzzing, wires
to smokestacks in the distance.
Even from afar
you can see the beating heart
billowing gray into the sky.

Although you cannot see the cold
carried on the air,
know this,
like the smoke in the sky,
this blood will never coagulate,
never congeal, it will only spread
and bleed.

Emotion

You place this woven cloth in my hands
and I accept stoically,
but how can I hold this visceral silk,
when I can't even feel
its presence on my callous hands
when it is so light
the slightest wind could carry it away,
so transparent
I would not know which direction
to chase after?