Sandpiper
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Masthead
    • Resources
    • FAQ
    • Contact Us
  • Issues
    • Issue I
    • Issue II
    • Issue III
    • Issue IV
  • Submit

Winter Will Thaw

ANGELA CHEN
I

Little thing under packed-down ice
in a dark winter lake, where sense 
is a fantasy and nothing can be seen,
touched, thought. Yet someday you’ll
sharpen your sternum into a blade
and cut into the cold fortification 
that has kept you so still, break
from this dim dead dormancy of
ancient snow-water, kelp, and dreams
that have not yet been fed light.

II

Little thing, you can’t make 
something out of nothing. How many times
should you die before you swallow it in, that
you were the weapon, you are the weapon?
That trench of vacancy and life made dead, 
where sight is not sight and the dark is the dark
is the dark—to be torn and set white ablaze 
when you fashioned bones into a plow,
brain tissue into rope. Claw, never let go. 
Split of ice, split of dusk. Air. Light. 

III

Little thing, think thoughts of spring,
ice glinting under white suns and skin, 
skin, skin that is no longer glacial, 
no longer deathless. Think of the vitality, 
rosé in the flesh of forearms and neck. 
Supine, your hot blood on shining snow, 
one sharp rust-red more beautiful than the
muted, submarine womb of any lake. 
Think of skimming fingers over this
smooth, knight-silver dagger of life. 

IV

Little thing, live this season of pain and 
cold light but know that, as the lake surface 
comes to life and spring sings a song that
skims its face, you will melt like warm snow
and wet the rifts and cracks of earth made stiff, 
by command of the sun, mother and executioner. 
Spring brings birth and death, and you, love,
dearest darling snow child, must know
--
all will fleet, but the great and precious go first, 
always, back to that blue tarn of eternal sleep. 
Angela Chen is a rising junior who loves to dabble various avenues of the written word. She loves nature metaphors, Shakespeare, mango and passionfruit boba, drizzling open-window evenings, and the solace that writing brings her.
TABLE OF CONTENTS    |     ⇦    ⇨


Get in Touch!
Sandpiper © 2020
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Masthead
    • Resources
    • FAQ
    • Contact Us
  • Issues
    • Issue I
    • Issue II
    • Issue III
    • Issue IV
  • Submit