We’re proud to feature our first Spittoon Monthly poet, Xiao Yue (Shelly) Shan. Swift and lucid, Shelly glides among past and present, East and West, intimate and wistful poignancy.

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~~~

 

you’re the one who left but I want to talk about me


maybe I won't go to sleep
wander down by winchester and rose
put my cigarette out on the wall of the croissant stand
where you could see ginger's diner on the left side
if I’m going to talk about us I can never be fast enough
with the way you would’ve told it sounding like flutes
sounding like yesterday sounding like your key
in the door any minute now
tonight the stars call out to one another on telephones
so who can blame me when I say I can’t sleep
walk three blocks to the vietnamese restaurant annie always took me to
which after I met you became the restaurant I always took you to
which after you left became a temple, even though
we were ashamed of our worship, as if it were
sin. prayer, is that what it was, all those days gasping for breath
when we stifled it with aluminum. when we ate it up
in neon orange quartets. how do I say I’m sorry? I even asked the waitress
when she dropped off our coffees and you were in the bathroom
but by the time you got back I still didn’t know. that was when
we never slept. hours from the night hurried and white
broken open like sugar packets on the table while you looked
over my shoulder and I sat six thousand miles away on the other side of the table
and when I reached out for your hand it seemed so silly that I took a packet
of marmalade instead. you wouldn't stop digging your nails into the lacquered
rivers on diner tables, even when I asked nicely. even when
I hit you. you were so beautiful under florescent lighting
all apricot cheeks, all that blood popping like bubblegum
in the whites of your eyes. your face a puddle of milk on the countertop
like a saint done up for a night out on the town with the girls
when outside the window it wasn’t really raining. right now is about when
the trains stop running. still by the station bodies hover orangely
in the light, flickers of fingernails and eyelids
vaguely brighting. I see you there, wings drilled
into your ankles, up and down the hyacinths on st. james. the bridge
of your nose through a small flame. the sight of your naked legs
crossed holy on the windowsill. how can I sleep, when the way you kissed me
made my mouth so glad to have lips full of blood.

 

~~~

 

13: 11 JST


as if our watches were taxi meters we count time
by distance traveled, for if we measured minutes
as minutes, hours as hours, wouldn’t it seem
as though we have nothing? and isn’t it nice
to look at names of places, even the ones we’ll
never go to. shodoshima to megijima, takamijima
to ibukijima and all along the inland sea as if
this life were one made to be spent all marked
up with salted fish and wild grapes, as if we opened
our wallets and found no coins, but only meters.
along meguro river everything seems edible,
even though no one is able to dip their bodies
in the water. the simplest solution, absolving
the question of passing time, to stay in our bedroom
overlooking the cherry trees, and say to one another
that we have places to go, yes, but not yet. not yet.

 

~~~

 

in which we have never returned from our wars


when waiting becomes something            to measure
eternity with.      and because time     has no quantity 
it is able to detain                 a whole country
in its dark,     oaken,     stasis.                  imagine 
holding                a december letter
from your son                     who is somewhere 
in xinjiang                 or siberia
and having to find               one of the three men 
left in the village                       who could read.
my father answered           a knock at the door
every                 couple                 of weeks
during the winter           of 1969.       he said some-
-times          he would receive        lightbulbs
in brown paper        still warm                  as thanks
and that most of the mothers           did not cry
as much                              as the fathers. 
even then         he was proud           of his country
and the men                    willing to die
ordinary deaths—       by ice         by starvation
for it.                                  it is strange             to think
that a land can build itself up                and wide     
and grey               without the days ever seeming
to have gone by.            men blackened by snow and
going slowly away.         with them standing
so still like this.                         hands open like this.

 

~~~

 

only saying


meanwhile the music from the street fades
as does the last of the wine from the glass
and cigarette ash falls into the inner margins
of the open book. the weather on the back of
someone’s mind will be realized at the break
of day. there are many more things than there is
space, which seems like a mistake someone
should’ve caught, before it happened. tepid
spring rings in with a pinking of branches
and nothing is as worrisome as dinnertime.
a fiction develops in the way the living
so effortlessly eclipses the dying
and it is dry and ordinary and clear.
the varying of speeches, the whiskey of
the hour. the slow impatience of love
maybe opening the front door and returning.

 

~~~

 

we don’t say what if


reading edith wharton I saw myself too
in the age of innocence
among golden hieroglyphs that hung in the air
like half-risen question marks
satin shoes that pinched the heel
and molasses sandwiches and brandy
and men who didn’t like to dance but would
I saw my feet in mary janes
and before them I saw new york
yellow flowers and holding concrete
I saw bay windows and lace handkerchiefs
I saw the vision and then beside the vision reality
looking just as real as daffodils
I walked out of the opera house
I dropped my glove
I saw the back of my hand
the colour of the back of my hand and
it wasn’t new york but shanghai
no mahogany no ivory
no red marble or smoked glass
but there were signatures
ashed onto brick and windows
held together with handprints, the streets
filled with straw in case
something needed to be burnt
there was no jazz though plenty of cigarettes
still I wasn’t to be outside at night
though even daylight seemed narrow
next to the blues and the reds
who held their symbols close to them—
one for a nation
one for the people
as if one necessitated destruction
and the other would celebrate
I saw myself at a table not talking
I saw that we waited and we waited
as my mother filled a pot with dried yellow flowers
and my father said what
will happen to china?
the age of innocence was indifferent
but it wasn’t its fault
zelda fitzgerald was dancing
in the fountain at the plaza
because the twenties were brilliant
full of light full of air
if I had been there
would there be satin and pearls
whiskey for breakfast
or woodsmoke and ink and my long black hair
stranded in the branches of a plum tree
would I have known there was a war coming
would gene austin be playing on a cassette
would the vinyl tablecloths be pink and green
would I be drying my hair of fountain water
you were born at just the right time my mother said
my mother who had never read
fitzgerald or wharton said
as if very proud of herself
as if she had done her best
because I was born at just the right time
and had it been any other time
no jazz though plenty of cigarettes
they started killing people at zhabei
at the fruit market by the railway station
and the thing that would save lives that day
would be forgetting to buy apples
you were born at just the right time she said
as if out of fear that
it could’ve been any other way
her own fear
her learned fear
because in all the other times
I could’ve been hanging linens
I could’ve seen a pretty watch in the window
I could’ve stopped in the middle of the street
and remembered to buy apples

 

~~~

 
Xiao Yue (Shelly) Shan is a poet and essayist born by the Bohai Sea, raised on the Pacific coast, and currently living alongside Meguro River. Her pieces can be found in Grain Magazine, The Shanghai Literary Review, Redivider, The Briar Cliff Review, and The Asian American Writer’s Workshop. Her poetry has received the 2018 New Millenium Writings Award. Her first chapbook, How Often I Have Chosen Love, will be out in Fall 2019. She haunts the internet at shellyshan.com.

Spittoon Monthly publishes one exceptional short story or set of poems on the first Monday of every month.