i go outside, and encounter

by Catherine Ji

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in winter, my hair
beckons me home. i am of fractals,
         slick and iced.    

what went wrong?     the concrete beckons. 
the weather has me fooled. i tell the dirt
i feel like wet socks.  

when the dirt is busy,
         i talk to cars. i talk to my hand. 
         my pupils the size of grapes.
i am mere fruit. i am truck
carrying death. 

the apple wind
pushes me nowhere.
        i am baptized in frost,
              in small metals.

what went wrong 
         with your map?      the water traces 
         trellis of winter and blood. 

i am a terrible polyp. i am a map of polyps.
         my home is broccoli. my home is winter.
         there is no sunlight, and my eyes 
         nest between rotting grout. 

cardinal rose, cardinal rose. dear dirt,
the flower in my mouth
points exactly towards sky.

         the absence of sky,
         where birds cease to exist,
         where there is nothing of nothing. 

dear dirt,
i stared too much at sky. it looks like a fishbowl.
rainbow-colored, dazzling fishbowl.
distraction from the weeds
wedged in my scalp. 

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Catherine (Cathy) Ji is a physics student at MIT. She has been recognized by the Ilona Karmel Writing Prizes, National YoungArts Foundation, 1455, and the Idaho Commission for Libraries. Her poetry is forthcoming in Electric Lit.