Poem of the Week: Ching-In Chen

American Syntax

............The teacher straightbacked,

faced me off, her eyes.

............My face in the cleave of

her shoulder, my bones

sitting high my cheek.

............The word proper

arrives in the hall...The order

of things, rolling

neat into pine drawers, dead-

clean. Squeezed juice of greedy

sponge.

............Her teeth not match.

One chipped...The corner lifted,

peeking a window, furtive.

............The other, pearl, round

and perfect, looming above my

arched head...About to bite.

-Ching-In Chen

Used by permission.

Photo by: Sarah Grant

Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart's Traffic (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press) and co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press). She is a Kundiman, Macondo and Lambda Fellow and has worked in the San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside and Boston Asian American communities. Ching-In currently lives in Milwaukee and is involved in union organizing and direct action against the draconian proposals of Governor Scott Walker.

Chen was part of the group reading 7 & 7: 7 Poets Celebrate Kundiman's 7th Year at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.

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