Window-Gazing
by Michelle Jia

shaking like antennae in a storm we wake
with San Francisco between our paws. Sift
a bad one straight into the trash and deliver
our speeches to the spaces above us, between
us like filigree nets unravelling faster than imminent
storms unravel. So many are born

just to scrape up the remains of lovers
whose names were shed in such torrential blues.
You and I is all we have now. Humming clueless
little ditties to pass the time and stabilize
the strangeness between us: this patina face
drained to the neck, your right ear, and the rain

in a voice that could make gods tremble.
show me a sign. One parchment hand on the window
frame, cedar-heart bird, breast feathers plain
as a graphite smudge. this too was planned:
that we should look at each other now
and see centuries of rain in a dry hotel room.

Michelle Jia is a writer and musician who lives for summer storms, paper mail and uncharted land. She has poetry upcoming in The Claremont Review and The Adroit Journal. Her current place of residence is Toronto, Canada.