Hannah ya-jun Hsieh 謝亞君
No, she’s not even a geode
A transmission through space?
A dismemberment of the spirit?
More like opening the chest &
throwing the heart out with the gizzards.
- Toi Derricotte, ‘Speculations about ‘I’’
an unremarkable stone
rolls among the crowd
on a grey-sanded beach
with an iron-plated will clutched to her husk
is a name engraved in the stars?
these charcoal waves
are far too sentimental for a ‘runner-up’
/亞軍 (or maybe she’s 亞/asia’s 君/sovereign)
what future laces her veins?
a transmission through space?
they tell her
her sweet existence
softens the wounds of her ancestors
but ‘i don’t want to hurt anymore’
the prickles on her fingers
weaving the tapestry they’ll inherit
licking the saccharine droplets
off the stinging red yolk of her face.
when he stares and waits for merit
do you feel a dismemberment of the spirit?
when her rocky hands ache
she visits the sea
closes her eyes and listens to it sigh
the red threads & silver needles embedded
in her fingertips, the wind whispers as she wanders, swishes
grains of salty sand, sticky on the threads
smile and brush her smooth mercury skin
it’s not like she’s forgotten it, the ironclad,
more like opening the chest and
softening her metamorphic body
the hands of her ancestors sculpt
each atom, colliding to form their precious child
muddy eyelids crack open to the baton
a new sovereign of these hand-carved veins
the withering cry is heard
droplets of hot mineral-rich fluids
threaded new memories along a shoreline
she won’t be — (even when she withers)
throwing the heart out with the gizzards.
Hot in Herrrrrrre!!
After ‘Hot in Herre’ by Nelly
At Night I Dream Of The December Heat, And I Hear It’s
Cicadas Singing While The Pits Of My Arms Are Getting,
For Lack Of A Better Word, Moist. It’s Hot, He’s Hot,
Sure My Eyes Are Heart-Shaped, But I Would Never Be In
Love, Especially Not With Someone From Here.
I Explain To Him ‘I’m August Leo From Asia, So
I Was Meant To Be A Summer Birthday Girl But Sure, Take
My Birthright Away From Me.’ I Peel The Skin Off
An Orange, Lick The Sticky Juice Off All
My Fingers Because I Know Your(’re)
Watching. This Sugary Syrup Will Stain My Clothes.
The wind, my grandmother, you
A cento
you are the pearls my grandmother wore
the dress she wore when she was young
in which comes a wind which blows nobody good.
using my breadfruit brain and opposable thumbs
the waves come, then dissipate —
i hurt my mind thinking of you.
you have deeply stirred the spirits within me,
but our childhood places are in fragments
time is the shroud we can’t clean.
when the young dawn showed again with her rosy fingers,
a saturday gust that wouldn’t have troubled
her high-necked dress —
it’s not quite summer where you are.
Hannah Ya-Jun Hsieh 謝亞君 (Taiwanese, Pākehā) has always had the arts in her life. She grew up in Taiwan and moved to New Zealand when she was nine. She is the co-founder of the youth arts & wellbeing space ‘Art Soup’ in Māwhera. If needed, you can find her in your nearest body of water or on Instagram.
Hannah writes: ‘In ‘No, she’s not even a geode’ the first stanza refers to the fact that my name 亞君 (Ya-Jun) sounds the same as 亞軍, which means runner-up or second place. The quote in the second stanza is spoken by Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All At Once. ‘The Wind, My Grandmother, You’ uses works by Erik Kennedy, Hadassah Grace, Nina Mingya Powles, Chris Tse, and Homer.’