Ungodly
Allison Wu
and this is her ascension: to rise star lustered and jaded
desire hollowing bones, immortality crystalized in craters. how it began
sloshing in a quivering body waning as she molded to lunar floodpaths--
unwinding lifelines. what it means is sanctuary is untetherable. remanufactured
to empty, body distorted in flight, irreversible matriculation
to goddess scattering in finality. at the horizon as she gathers
atmospheres in the flare of regret, moonlight splintering
her gown, the sky once pregnant with promise, fractured as she remembers the
drone of ten suns now heavy embers in the ocean, magma unraveling
in rivers of silk. call it a penance this supple darkness clotting in her chest
wishing to hold too much, left like her flailing jade rabbit plagued
with misinferred want and constellations in forced consequence. fileted memories
braided into hair. forsaken in spirit forgotten in the vestiges of gravity
and mistaken in her worship as she clutches diaspora in ceaseless orbit.
desire hollowing bones, immortality crystalized in craters. how it began
sloshing in a quivering body waning as she molded to lunar floodpaths--
unwinding lifelines. what it means is sanctuary is untetherable. remanufactured
to empty, body distorted in flight, irreversible matriculation
to goddess scattering in finality. at the horizon as she gathers
atmospheres in the flare of regret, moonlight splintering
her gown, the sky once pregnant with promise, fractured as she remembers the
drone of ten suns now heavy embers in the ocean, magma unraveling
in rivers of silk. call it a penance this supple darkness clotting in her chest
wishing to hold too much, left like her flailing jade rabbit plagued
with misinferred want and constellations in forced consequence. fileted memories
braided into hair. forsaken in spirit forgotten in the vestiges of gravity
and mistaken in her worship as she clutches diaspora in ceaseless orbit.
This piece placed second in Healthline Zine's Folklore contest and was published in collaboration with Renaissance Review. Below is what the contest's guest judge for poetry, Sarah Ghazal Ali, had to say on the piece:
“I turn to poetry to have my brain reactivated by surprising, alive language. Lush and
layered, this poem enacts that activation in its exploration of Chang'e and her journey to
the moon. I admire the movement and fluidity of language here, the way the reader is
carried breathlessly upward and out of gravity's pull alongside Chang'e.”
Sarah Ghazal Ali is a writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of THEOPHANIES
(Alice James Books, 2024), selected as the Editors' Choice for the 2022 Alice James
Award.
Winner of The Sewanee Review Poetry Prize, her poems have been published in The
American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Narrative Magazine, the
Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere.
A Stadler and Kundiman Fellow, Sarah is the poetry editor for West Branch and an
incoming Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College. She has received
fellowships and residencies from Tin House, the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary
Arts, the Hambidge Center, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Community of
Writers, and others. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts
Amherst, where she was a Juniper and MFA Fellow, and currently lives in the Bay Area,
California.
“I turn to poetry to have my brain reactivated by surprising, alive language. Lush and
layered, this poem enacts that activation in its exploration of Chang'e and her journey to
the moon. I admire the movement and fluidity of language here, the way the reader is
carried breathlessly upward and out of gravity's pull alongside Chang'e.”
Sarah Ghazal Ali is a writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of THEOPHANIES
(Alice James Books, 2024), selected as the Editors' Choice for the 2022 Alice James
Award.
Winner of The Sewanee Review Poetry Prize, her poems have been published in The
American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Narrative Magazine, the
Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere.
A Stadler and Kundiman Fellow, Sarah is the poetry editor for West Branch and an
incoming Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College. She has received
fellowships and residencies from Tin House, the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary
Arts, the Hambidge Center, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Community of
Writers, and others. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts
Amherst, where she was a Juniper and MFA Fellow, and currently lives in the Bay Area,
California.
Allison Wu is a high school student from upstate New York. Her work has been recognized by Princeton University, the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and Hollins University. It can be found in West Trestle Review, Eunoia Review, the Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere. She enjoys playing with her cats, traveling, and chili oil.
