Features

A shaggy exhale of the coastal mourning, 

easing

Dew mottles over pellucid teal

Outside, the soggy hills

carousel

lazily

into those I’ve already seen before

A sight bored to some

Only here, 

I saw you

So I don’t complain

Harsh winks of the glittering sea

flash me a grin in my mindless wake

their teeth are laced with mirth

Mine are laced with vitriol

To the sun, I give you the cold shoulder

Ducking under a gasoline roof’s safe retreat

I must’ve wandered off again, I watch 

my mother’s frantic pacing

calling me back to the car

But I, bystander, remain

Inside, 

I'm still mulling over

which snack to take

The eventide breaks

over little sur

Reverberating

&

finally 

Swept away

Diana Li's poem won third prize in the 2024 Annual Humanities & Sciences Undergraduate Writing Contest.