MAD & MOONLY: SPRING 2019
ANN ZHANG & ANNIE LU

ANN ZHANG

WATER AS A HOME FOR HEAVY OBJECTS

It starts when my father thinks his way
down to the white tile floor of the neighbors’ pool
blows bubbles out his ears until
one rises          to the skyline
takes a bite                   of the fiery city decides
to dive back down and never resurface.

My father stays
hydrated because it’s good for the baby
unattached                   to his pruning body he has trouble
washing me out of his system like blood that you        spit
rinse     the sharpness from your mouth           trace
copper pipes. He laments passing down
his heaviness like                     dark eyes realizes
he must keep the baby
company
at the bottom
with the stones.

So he teaches it            to blow bubbles to kick
its way to the surface he says to follow the tide
but these waves only flow to familiar places. The baby thinks
the thing about sound
underwater is that it has no corners to                                                 hold.


CURIOSITY FOR CAT LOVERS

In disorderly parties, sister cats
slink through the dog door until
I remember to varnish its edges
with duct tape. I miss my dead
livelihood most when the younger
cats shriek because I leave them
ceramic bowls of sweet soy milk.
They prefer to lap from a colorless
puddle — what the ceiling drools
onto granite and numbs it. I hover
a wine glass over the pool, if only
to watch water collect
someplace new, but I can’t help
but swallow the dregs and taste
coffee. It clings to my tongue,
sandpaper and pink like a cat’s.

ANNIE LU

IMMINENT LANDSCAPES AND FUTURE LANGUAGE

 1. THE FUTURE IS A LANGUAGE WE MUST LEARN TO SPEAK

I know of sounds that make blue its own wait
sounds that quench thirst for grace
the sigh of a place
I hear keys like a gift, lone sighs at first
bruise that we make on the dirt

The tapping and clapping leave prints on my ecstasy
colors that riot are quite undisquieting
silence
                                   is a fact that detracts in no way from my threnody

2. DESERT

somewhere in all this broad blank haziness there is a man in a business suit blustering sweating flustering regretting
definitely overweight and his voice booms rusty cannons, maybe not rusted but oxidized there is no water just air
somewhere in this smoke-glazed mustiness, a sinuous, shortsighted woman flickers into and out of and into the sunlight
senses though she can’t see, quenches despite no drink, takes a shot, comes back up talk to gods talks to God
somewhere, in all this shapeless sawdust, saw becomes stardust, star becomes picture, pictures, only in our minds
sipping, sweat from sorrow, and staring, skyward, until blind.

 3. CLIFFSIDE

This is an impetus vying for attention
I overheard the other day
a murder screeching
at my rooftop
red-bricked
restriction

Now
there is a stain
on my mind I can't get out
for in silence we find ourselves thinking too loudly

My sleep is an envelope that mails me to my dreams
It gets the address wrong and I reach my nightmares instead
And most of the time I don’t remember the destination at all
Only waking and finding I haven’t moved

Now
I have a shot
in the arm to seek out different aves
because a parliament would be better protection

Against the dictatorship of my willful mind
drowning out clarion calls
to contemplation over
overhangs I
fall





Ann Zhang lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her 16-pound cat. Ann is 16 (years, not pounds) and writes when she is hungry, which is often. She attends John Burroughs School.

Annie Lu was born and raised in San Diego, California, but she dreams of cooler, cloudier climes. She has won two gold keys, one in poetry and one in humor, in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and writes for both her school’s literary and journalistic magazines. Her work also appears on Teen Ink and Eunoia Review. She enjoys long walks with her ravenous, rambunctious puppy, nerdy history facts, and writing pieces that other people may never see.