Unburied (Cicada Shells) by Ash Zeng
Wind-dried, strewn among blooms, crushed
bits of the June afternoon: flaky air, dead lips, leaf spots of shade,
crispy as my patience, ground into wispy heat with a pinch and rub of
forefinger and thumb. Hooking onto the bark of trees, a snapshot of years of nymphs,
exoskeletons oiled, sheening. Seventeen years of burrowing in the husk,
albino and fleshy, sightless without songs. What darkness did they feel (moist
soil or blindness from their hulls)? Cicadas continue their epics of ascension and
reproduction (a week only). No time to lament, sing it, the feeling when sunlight pierces
their ommatea, first vibrations of ink-lined wings: sing it. A flimsy façade left
to microbes, digested like questions such as “how does it feel to touch the sun?”
Cicadas don’t need to answer (or mourn, even): they only sing.
Ash Zeng is a poet from Shanghai, China who explores gender and immigrant identity in their poems and wishes to use poetry as their conduit of self-expression. They study at Emory University's English & Creative Writing Program. In their free time, they like to listen to Yorushika and cook food from their hometown.
