astrology

By Cindy Liang, Del Norte High School 26'

"Visual Alchemy" by Leanne Fan, Westview High School 26'

Atheism (n): the lack of belief in God or gods       in which the star-studded Heavens bless us from birth bathed in red       my mother’s breaths are measured in the silence between heartbeats       I am heralded in a wreath of sticky luck       instead, my father believes       and curses my atheism in calligraphy woven from smoke traced by three incense brushes       I am his most lethal sin

Astrologist (n): a student of the art in which stars trace our faith in delicate footprints       each tinier than the last       Grandma is my astrologist and my sculptor       I am her 白鹅bai’e , her dainty swan, her Yaoniang reimagined into western ballet       she remodels my clay like 女娲Nvwa once did into lotus curves       each petal is less than 3 村cun long       when I am eleven, she rips my luck-soaked feathers from fletchling wings and births me anew       this time i am doused in a fortunate gold 

Elysium (n): a mythical world of imagination       her astrology where i blossom       I trace the sky upside-down to the drum in her chest and the zither in her throat       she tells me i am dancing for emperors and kings and fathers       With my Father’s vitriol in thick on my tongue i spend the breaths i stole from my mother’s silence       indulging in her sacrifice, I twirl in the 阴yin of moonlight for eons       i am dancing for the arch of shaky petals and the curve of my ribs and the glitter in her eyes       Grandma trades her last heartbeats for my destiny, yearning for her place in the stars       for the first time, I believe       she reaches Elysium (n): a state of ideal happiness

Tradition (n): my only inheritance from my ancestors      in which my father sells me to the luckiest bidder he can find       and we are bound to each other in red silk paladins and golden dowries and mortal blessings from our Fathers       when i kowtow to my condemnation, my Father christens me as the daughter of another family

女书nv’shu (n): a tongue drawn with willowy strokes as fluid and bright as our unfulfilled dreams       in painted fans and embroidered shoes I learn to hope       I pray with my palms toward the 阴yin of the moon and gather starlight in the creases and crevices of my hands       I smear my history in the the well of veins       retrace the curve of swan feathers and the swell of stolen breaths into the pads of my fingerprints       One day, in the hands of a distant daughter, our stories will be read from her lifeline

With my fate sealed, I let the luminescence of Grandma’s legacy pool in my cupped hands run down my wrists like a watered-down blessing as I reach for the stars.