Michelle Lin
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Aria as Subzero Winter
To be such wind, steeped
in the mouth, a cut lock of hair.
One tendril
of breath each time you
spit me out. I could be this
transparent, transplanted in your vocal
cords. Untie me cool as snow
and its endless
mimicry, sick
with clouds and sequins. I am
shedding all my excesses, I marry this
city, too, in lace. Starlings, of course,
file away the sky in the sharpness
of song.
Sing along and see
me. Beneath
each studded eave are daggers
and teeth, a jaw ready to sink close,
to consume.
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Michelle Lin is the author of A House Made of Water (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). She received her MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and her BA from the University of California, Riverside. A former poetry and composition instructor, she currently works for API Legal Outreach, a social justice non-profit serving communities of color in the Bay Area. She is a Kundiman Fellow.