ISSUE ELEVEN | FALL 2018
what a beautiful summer it was
crust of salt at the tip of the teeth
what a languid and liquid
summer to love and be loved
where love lies
in the summer of love my love
gently detaching the door from its hinge
somewhere in new jersey
the gentle collapse
sandal tan picking the skin from my feet
the circling sun
jam jars and coffee and ice
fly wing and skin
sunning myself
on my mental beach
the apartment in gentle collapse
the boy and the girl and the girl
and the sun in the summer
my clothes on the sill
in the summer of ice cubes stuck
to fingerpads
of hair on a mirror
with fingerprints
in the hot fleshy summer
crying its aspartame tears
from some other body
my body kept sprouting
crying its aspartame tears
in the sand
its other head held
in its hands
in the thin glassy summer
how could you love
the soap in the pan
the hole in the screen
where the flies get in
you love
the church
I love
my love
in the crystallized summer
I kept you inside
a mason jar
you peered out from under the lid like
hello
in the dust-streaked summer
the small gross emotion
like flies in rosé
I had all these tiny suns
I would keep in my pockets
with ice cubes
I didn’t have enough pockets
to hide all the suns
in the fly-papered summer
paper tickets wooden prayers
gently detaching the window pane
I sweat in the sweat
of the fan and the suns
hard shell of secrets
over my clothes
the sill the fly the wing
its stunning decay
in the sand-choked summer
too many secrets
eaten too fast
freeze the nerve
at the roof of the summer
artificial creams and pinks
a sun on ice
in a mason jar
what a small gross summer
to sprout from a root
in the summer
shrouded forms in time
the body and the body and the body
the clothes on the sill
somewhere a crowd
I sweat in the bed
with the circling sun
its motion decayed
my jar of light
my other heart
somewhere in new jersey
rapping the shell the sill
the glass-shard dulled
turned over for years
in the mind of the sea
Yumi Dineen Shiroma is a PhD student in English at Rutgers University, where she studies the theory and history of the novel. Her poetry has previously appeared in BOMB, Hyperallergic, and Peach Mag, and her chaplet, A Novel Depicting "The" "Asian" "American" "Experience," was recently published by Belladonna*. You can find her on Twitter at @ydshiroma.
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