Girls
EMMA K. WANG
1
My dog dies on a Sunday, July's rain
a muzzle around my heart. At night I dream
about the trails behind my house where we
weaved in and out of trees, bellies
hanging & knees scabbed. This poem is
about life. I know. My spittooned dog. God.
In the beginning, all the world was America*
so I lie still on her tracks, wait for the talons
to sink into steel. My bones sold for a carton
of milk. My face washed ashore on this desert
of the most golden grain. Good citizen
with the right features, only the wrong
eyes. Wrong name. But I want to say he loved
me anyway. My dog, I mean, the one
who drowned in sand. My mother tells me
to follow my dog's tango, tangle with our flag
until all the poppies drop. By morning, stoplights
stuck on red & the roads splitting themselves
open for the next super bloom. Look
how quickly I learn. I promise I can be better
than this city’s exhaust, better than the letters
pillaging the fields, all the right ones for god
& the wrong ones for myself: dog, immigrant,
god, god I love how good you are to me.
*From Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
EMMA K. WANG is a 19-year-old writer born in Xi’an, China but is currently a freshman at Stanford University. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Arts and Writing awards, Bennington Young Authors Awards, The Adroit Journal, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, TRACK//FOUR, Canvas Literary Journal, Fictional Café, The Harpoon Review, Blue Marble Review, and more. In her free time, she likes to watch cheesy horror movies with her friends.