Sean Wang

in her house, the curtain makes a shadow.
a cicada wing, veined ladder, thin.
on the rod, a husk grips,
eyeholes guarding thumbed light.
my grandmother once lifted such skins,
said good luck against leaving.

in the drawer, a westbound ticket,
her photo before she left,
still learning west.
we file what we can in matchboxes,
cardboard slick with summers,
strikers bald, no spark.
they slide where the floor tilts.

at the shore, her skirt hem flickers,
wing thin when i squint.
salt clings to what it catches,
a faint starch at the edge.

cicadas split, climb, spend themselves.
the wires give back mostly heat.
in the lamp, the filament hesitates,
then takes.

a small blue error
my grandmother might have smiled at,
cloth and light briefly,
the same thin wing.

Bio

Sean Wang is a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominated poet. His work appears in West Trade Review, ONE ART, wildscape. literary journal, and elsewhere. He is currently a PhD candidate.