Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets' daily poetry dispatch. Read "年糕: year cake" by Charlotte Nip.

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年糕: year cake

By Charlotte NIp

Grandma traded cotton

peeling hours for glutinous rice flour

once a year, she is greedy

for love.

By dawn she returns

brown sugar water

overstimulates a blank canvas

golden molecules

three red jujubes

wrinkling on our tongues

exfoliate our hollow stomachs.

Grandma remembers

winter preys

with its cold teeth

here comes the mountain monsters

shaped like dogs

growling like leopards

to satiate the hungry Gods

fatty fumes draw them in

like a burst artery.

By the ninth lunar morning

squid ink calligraphies ruby red papers

keeps the monsters from

chewing through our kind

tangerine sunstreams and

year cakes cement the valleys

chewy textures

like magic epoxy,

firecrackers softens

the growls.

 

Between the monsters’ teeth

i was born a skeptic

of Chinese folklore

the witchcraft year cake brings

but now, crispy burnt edges

mellows like a hymn

年糕

年糕

年年高

year cake brings

the start of a new season

of promises

higher each year

superstitious daring our lead

dreams

                                          grounded

by dirty dishes

                                           in the sink.

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Copyright © Charlotte Nip

Charlotte Nip is a SFU Master of Publishing graduate, digital marketer, writer, and poet. She has been published on SAD Mag, ThoughtCatalog, and Ricepaper Magazine. Her debut chapbook, Acne Scars, published recently with Gap Riot Press. When she is not working, she likes taking the perfect Instagram shot and going through Vancouver to find it.

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