Bones

Lydia Kim & LiAnne Yu

I wanted you to feed me
thick yellow broth
desire is death, you said
bones down bare

I wanted you to feed yourself 
feeding me thin mayo sandwiches
triple dipping tea bags
You looked for salvation 

You spoke in gesture
the tung of frozen meat in a wet steel bowl 
I listened for what’s whispered
in the valley between white marble and red muscle 
You scraped the flavor into the bin 
we guessed at the seasoning 

I want to mother, you, my mother 
eat silence
in the amber of that yellow kitchen 
hakka stews bubbling
prime rib juicing 
lipping sweet lard
tonguing something whole
chewing out loud

the empty bowl of my clavicle
too much, you said, so big
your eyes pinned forward
slim + whiten + soften

You soured like forgotten milk 
sleeping alone, a curled, angry bean 
everything in pieces
I peeled the leaves from books and chewed

I wanted to feel 
how good fat tastes
how it blurs the mouth
how the tongue slipskates clean 
I exhumed what was carved and tossed
gave up 

You earthworm old clothes 
ladle medicine 
I want to womb you
a flash of magic 
You before the hunger
a glint of cream, salt 
swallowing slow 
the pleasure of it all 

Lydia Kim is a writer and strategist based in the Bay Area. She has essays and fiction in Catapult, Ursa Minor, Reflex Fiction, Lunchbox Moments, and (finally!) HAD; other pieces forthcoming in anthologies from Woodhall Press and Alternating Currents Press. She is an alum of the 2021 Tin House Summer Workshop and is working on her first novel. You can find her on twitter at @elliswkim, which doubles as a Deesha Philyaw fan account.

LiAnne Yu is an anthropologist and writer most shaped by her upbringing in San Francisco as a Gen Xer with immigrant parents. Her personal essay “TV was my family’s universal translator” appeared in the New York Times, and she has won several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, including a gold medal for her piece on living paycheck to paycheck in Hawaii and a gold medal for her piece on the opioid crisis. LiAnne is currently an editorial resident at the Seventh Wave, where she’s working on a story about how her mom got drawn into far right wing groups via QAnon videos aimed at Chinese speakers on YouTube. She lives on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Originally published March 2021 in poiesis 2.1 by w the trees.