Julie Wong

prey drive

you are the space
between the deer and the headlights, the choice
between the prey or the bow. the arrow-
head: familiar
foreign body. the body:
vehicle for violence. this too a cutting
of losses: the knife at the fawn’s throat, the bow-
string strung, the pedal pressed
like a neck beneath
a boot. you, the wide-eyed stare
and the distance narrowed to antler point,
the street of light
carved through your head, the velvet rib-
boned, the pearls strung,
the stillness a beast of your own
making.

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Julie Wong is an undergraduate student at UCLA. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a poetry finalist in the Rising Voices Awards. Her work is published or forthcoming in ellipsis… literature and art, Full House Literary, Ink & Marrow, Pinhole Poetry, The Turning Leaf Journal and elsewhere.