Poetry by Beth Cheng

                Jane Rahman CC



Witness

She makes her own unhappiness he says as you watch her slowly curl into herself like a late October leaf his fingers close round to crush and crumble and burn Under his weird watchful inattention she knows no better than to be reborn from the ashes back into wife and whore and cunt He says he makes his own happiness as you watch him pluck silky strands from his sweater Long black blond brown and even auburn fall from the shadow of his hand Proud puppet preening and half-cocked he knows all the tricks to turn wallflowers into vixens He rises and falls she falls and rises teeter tottering for as long as you can remember as tears pooled and bosoms heaved





To Summer Long

I was just reminded that summer to others is winter Because the world is off kilter and on a slant you always secretly wanted winter to be long Pity my dear pity that you weren't a vampire siphoning off the blood of powerfully unwilling virgins to save you the trouble of ever learning how to pick up girls at parties Instead you lapped your way south and stayed there out of habit I read my compass right but alas you were fantastically magnetic in your widening gyre Hackneyed intoxicated I could only hide in the light to avoid going gentle into that good night Now urgent to short I sing myself electric





Do Unto Me

If love synapses, then chemistry cannot be dammed or reduced or reified, and free will only dances to the pulsed beats of our hearts in simile unexacerbated like the infinite jest of fuck all, goodnight moon and how now brown cow. It figures that God doesn't care if physics fingers math in a rough game of hole-in-one as long as the sky is falling.

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Beth Cheng is a licensed massage therapist and self-taught poet who has lived in Los Angeles since 2004. She has enjoyed the privilege of having had her poetry published in various online & print publications and being invited to feature & perform in the past, but it's been a while.

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