The Tender Soul

She beat
Until you couldn’t smell the child on him
She-
Beat-
Until his insides turned outsides burst

Still space
Held boiling, quivering in time

Him on the boarded, wrecked, scattered shore
Fish stench, book on bumps of ribs Feel
Soft wood planks soaked against the water of ocean
Rotten black sky spreading putrid tar
Tar on water
Thick, thick tar
Blue water glow on
Everything
Till
The blood was
In his rolling eyeballs

She beat.
Gravity pull,
Arm stretch up, Rocket down:
Like a choo choo train axle
Automatic systematic
Natural death.

Angry Cliché

Thoughts that make the singing stop
In the shower, and the throat click
Cause it’s shut the song in
Tight, where it hurts the insides.

The last
Bathroom raid
Ten years ago, my mom pushed me
Me, smiling, out
Big secret.

She didn’t want me knowing
But she did
Afterwards.
Brought me upstairs
Showed me a lump

On top of the covers,
A ball of white linen, it seemed
Shook to strain
To turn around:
The shadows were gray on it
Were still gray when I saw
Them
On my dad’s face.

Like somebody else’s stinky,
Bitter, swollen bursting with flesh juice
Flesh
Had been slapped on to replace
His eyes, nose, lips, chin, forehead–
His strange head bobbed
Once

What broke my heart, really
Was his humiliation
His savage, mourning reproach
That I should see him
Like this.

Beggars in the Courtroom

Two fat, oily eyes
Wedged in eye sockets
Oily blue center
He sits there
Seething.
He
Sees
The
Justice.
One yellow chinaman
Not worth understanding.
Not really-
And over there
Two
Ugly ghost daughters
The short one
Leaks water

Like a dirty faucet!

Nancy Tang
Age 16, Grade 11
Hunter College High School
Gold Key