MAD & MOONLY: FALL 2019
MEIMEI XU & MAGGIE WANG
MEIMEI XU
IN MEMORY
I catch frames of you
on trains, shuttles,
windscreens rolling
foreign films of cotton, corn.
Your jade canopies tumble down
slopes of Georgia, Ohio.
I've seen a thousand forests
but your oaks, willows
Press against the sun
with a different shiver, tremble.
Summer showers boil rivers
to milk tea, and branches, grandmas,
Arch and dip in their toes,
but this scene is overcast
with mismatched tones –
like coffee brewed from ground
Dirt, cake spread with
paint, oolong steeped in
sweat, mantou
bleached white.
I missed you
I told my mother. She said,
China is not quite as nice as it is in memory.
With each return to that dreamland home,
The sky-slicing mountains
lower, the unruliness of the fields
turn tame, the river can no longer catch
the dripping sun.
MAGGIE WANG
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
1. listen when he calls you home, because he is your father.
(I will pay him sacrifices worthy of a thousand gods,
and I will write the story of his battles into eternity)
2. listen when he calls you home, because you are his daughter.
(I will bear his name into the unknown without fear
and I will raise the lantern of the just among his people)
3. listen when he calls you home, because he made you with a piece of his own heart.
(I will give even mortals the gift of heavenly air
and I will grow from his flesh the flowers of love)
4. listen when he calls you home, because he carved your throne with his bare hands.
(I will break the ice that imprisons his dreams
and I will join the threads of the elements’ tapestry)
5. listen when he calls you home, because he gave his kingdom to you.
(I will lay my crown upon his head and not my own
and I will turn away the temptations of tyranny)
6. listen when he calls you home, because he blessed you.
(I will drink from the cascades with his name on my lips
and I will drown my cowardice in the sea of his honor)
7. listen when he calls you home, because he defended you.
(I will draw my own blood if it will open the gates to his world
and I will lead the mortals into his cavernous temple)
8. listen when he calls you home, because he loves you.
(I will toss the seeds of empires upon the fertile fields
and I will tell him that I, and all the mortals, love him also)
9. listen when he calls you home, because he is chaos and creation.
(I will speak his name like the blazing of lightning
and I will feel the beat of my heart as a victor's chant)
10. listen when he calls you home, because he is the clouds and the sky and the universe.
(I will listen when he calls me home into his celestial shrine
and I will be his heir, his voice, his mirror in mortal men)
Meimei Xu (Zhimei) is a senior at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, GA. Her journalism and creative work have been recognized by the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Library of Congress, Torrance Legacy Creative Writing Awards, and NCTE. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Typishly, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Sooth Swarm Journal. Meimei currently works as a content writer for the Adroit Journal.
Maggie Wang is a senior in high school from Washington, D.C. Her poetry has been recognized by the Parkmont Poetry Festival and the Scholastic Writing Awards. She is also co-editor-in-chief of her school’s award-winning literary magazine, Half-in-Earnest. When not writing, she enjoys taking walks and playing the piano. “last will and testament” comes from a collection of poems inspired by Greek mythology.