Lunchbox Poems

I was thinking about a time
before war,

when the sea was not a border
and we dove

into the punishing
waves. Some shore-noises

I forget: the hour shifting

with the tide-turn
like an octave drop, sand-scatter

against our bodies, phantom cries
from phantom children.

I want to write a poem with nothing in it.
No more birds tracing the coast,

no anxious clock, no lists of loss, no song

other than … Midday
amnesty. Fragment
of sun. I think

this is not the same beach.
Too thin a shoreline,

too close to town.

JENNIFER CHANG