Henie Zhang

 

The integration value of a line

As I went to sleep
in a glacial year
I discovered the axis

I discovered the crevice
as I went to sleep
in a glacial year:

light teemed
with light
against itself,
a lean-to curve
leaned slightly
against the weed
in the weed's
reflection

Once I felt a color like a question:
a pinhole

with a black
beyond.

In time's
low trees,
I grew large
and weary
with supposition:

a lake in a lake
a sound in a sound:

Is proportional to its depth

Did I know the storm
was here

but could not sense
it. Perhaps

to release the sky
from what binds it
to its blue
nature,
perhaps a flake

from the net
air fell
without landing

From all other lines in the network

The glass canopy

The pool
and its thin
but sure
veins of feeling:

a brightness
bent into the form
of a screen,

a space practiced
into a place

barreling inwards

I ran a hand over a woman

I ran a hand over a sense
I could have

I pictured a node
lit from within,

an edge lit,
from within;

And is a sort of generalization

And lacking space
everywhere,
the weed was pushed out
and fell,

the canopy fell
over a hush
we call a space
for breathing

Once I pulled the night
over my head
to forget the room

and all of this,
I mean,
a room

Of the concept of average distance

And looking out of

I felt a sense beginning

I didn't know whose
I thought

it belonged to a ray;

it must have belonged
to a ray:

we were standing
with a field between us;

the field was wet.

It was hard to know
you

The ray

The wet field

It was hard to know
you from the wet
field, from the ray

Henie Zhang's poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Diode Poetry Journal, A Shanghai Poetry Zine, Eunoia Review, among others. Henie is currently pursuing B.A.s in creative writing and English literature at the University of Chicago. She lives in Shanghai.