Jingxuan William Zhuang

My Teacher Once Said To love

the world is so cold. 

Wherever I go, like collecting marbles,
I am told to get home safe, no time to feel time 

work through the self. In transit again,
I pull two dollars from my pocket 

for the woman wailing down the aisle,
who gets off at the next stop, 

feet before seeing my palm. Resenting
the angle at which my elbow extends, 

I walk the last mile home.
In a window muting the rest of January, 

a seamstress’s needle mends
the night to wool. In another, 

a tuxedo cat’s tail swings by a cactus,
a man’s shirtless leisure in kitchen steam.

Too often I press things onto things. It is there,
the idea of a summer, though I never seem 

to break the right want open.

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Jingxuan William Zhuang is a writer from Qingdao, China. He has been in New York for a few months.