Poem of the Week

Carlina Duan, First Place winner in the 2017 Narrative 30 Below Contest, is the author of the poetry collection I Wore My Blackest Hair (2017). She earned a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA in poetry from Vanderbilt University (2019). She lives in Nashville.

Another Decade, Another Mouth

by Carlina Duan

baba tells us the story while we crack salted watermelon
seeds between our teeth. handful after handful, dipping


back into the bowl—roll, scatter, sharp clap as the front
tooth bucks into one black shell, another. Who wants


to make a decision like that? he asks. the crack, the salt,
the air parting as wài pó enters the room as she was


back then, hair streaked with silver, mouth a smudge
of blues and pinks. the needle to save her would cost


twelve thousand yuan—at the hospital, they stood, made wet by
grief. the lamp yellowed wài pó’s wrists. the room, airless.
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