Issue 45: Spring 2019

Ghazal for the New Year

I try reaching my father on the landline twice

 

I try reaching my father on the landline twice,

Für Elise playing on the other end. He puts me on hold, out of reach.

The ground, a white sheet of frost. No tire tracks yet.

Even before I left home, there’s been a family I can’t seem to reach.

At a gathering once, my grandfather taught me to kill snapping turtles.

You drag its tongue out as far as it can reach and chop it off.

My words do not ring. I speak them in mid air as if sound travels

even if no one picks it up. There are people I’m still trying to reach.

And the thing is, words come out of my head jumbled like jambalaya.

I can’t just, write. When I’m not writing, I’m reaching.

World Lit prof: At least jambalaya is spicy. It’s exciting.

Can’t reach him either.

In the morning, I will not switch open the blinds.

Want to know what it’s like to stay turned off so you can’t be reached.

 

About the author

Isabella Wang’s debut chapbook, On Forgetting a Language, is forthcoming with Baseline Press in 2019. At 18, she is a two-time finalist and the youngest writer shortlisted for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over 20 literary journals including CV2, Geez Magazine, Canthius, and carte blanche, and she holds a Pushcart Prize nomination for poetry. She is studying English and World Literature at SFU, working as an assistant editor with  Room Magazine, volunteering as the youth advocate for the Federation of BC Writers, and coordinating the bi-weekly Dead Poets Reading Series.