Blaring “Fly Like A Bird” across the Yellowhead Highway by Jane Shi

February 28, 2023
Poem title: Blaring “Fly Like A Bird” across the Yellowhead Highway Poet name: Jane Shi Poem (note: poem text appears is visually laid in the shape of a circle): what were you doing when the world dipped deep & the mountain quivered like a lost pen beneath a desk so unattended to you felt her unearned collapse tremor of elbow wide jab car doors a canyon receipt that’s when you fell butterfly wind beating silver Toyota run away into a highway broken CD dangling tagged along by the ankles trying to catch a fruit fly trap it with your bare hands first forgetting of buzzing unaware you had ten toes smother of curiosity you cut with your entire body someone else’s so six so small did not smell pity musty fried rice karaoke apartment under- construction like all smotherings a part of you still inched a little bird toward carbon monoxide smog horn announcement notes you held up a clay bird you held up little red flags said look look country i’ve been good i’ve been so so good as if that’s all you gave as if you didn’t break it with your bare hands End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Jane Shi Jane Shi is a queer Chinese settler living on the occupied, stolen, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Her writing has appeared in the Disability Visibility Blog, Briarpatch Magazine, The Offing, and Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press), among others. She was shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s 2022 Open Season Award for Creative Non-Fiction. She is the winner of The Capilano Review’s 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest and the author of the chapbook Leaving Chang’e on Read (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022). Find her on socials @pipagaopoetry.