2023 Award for New Poets Second Place Winner: “Self-Portrait as Apples to Apples” by Yingqi Sally Lu
Join us in congratulating the Award for New Poets Second Place winner, Yingqi Sally Lu. Read the wonderful poem, selected by guest judge torrin a. greathouse, “Self-Portrait as Apples to Apples” below.
“remember the time when you said you loved me so much all you wanted was to hold me in your mouth & all I could imagine was you jaw clenched teeth a Great Wall retching from my mutated flesh”
Here is a poem where Apples to Apples is tactfully used as a conveyor for the deep emotions, fears, and anxieties of being apart from family, finding oneself, racism, and queerness. Lu impeccably weaves in details with each shuffle of the cards, bringing us closer to the vulnerability of the poem.
Self-Portrait as Apples to Apples
I’m nibbling on the pit of a dried plum,
letting the salt burn my tongue. Ma’s forehead
bobbling on the call, asking if the food here is okay,
which is a metonym for everything.
Carbonara tastes like spit. Burek greased my soul. I need a rice cooker / Shuffle
Made myself a cup of Jiu Qu Hong Mei before going to queer union & cried when I couldn’t scrub the tea ring from your thermos couldn’t rip off Sun Wu Kong’s haunted golden circlet need no tea-leaf reader need an alibi for my citrusy bruise exploding into blue-green nebulae / Shuffle
Boys stacked on scooters chanting chinakimchongchinkfag like some rigged slot machine the jackpot being my fight or flight I will not be a spectacle so clog the algorithm instead with my feet stapled to cement pastry oil leaking from balled up croissants flushing away fever dreams of bamboo and lotus flowers and General Tso’s chicken strewn Oriental Gardens Oh, how I wish to be impermeable / Shuffle
My tongue juggling scorching Bosnian stew mouth gaping for ventilation remember the time when you said you loved me so much all you wanted was to hold me in your mouth & all I could imagine was you jaw clenched teeth a Great Wall retching from my mutated flesh my kingdom a collapsing cave How the body ejects destroys anything foreign and names it the invader / Shuffle
The food’s fine / I play my card / I fold
Watch the starch, she says. My retort
asphyxiated to a whisper, the sound of
a synthetically red apple squirming
towards the tree it fell from,
till it browned to a concession.
Yingqi Sally Lu
Yingqi Sally Lu is a writer from Shanghai, currently living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she attends the United World College in Mostar. Her work has been recognized by The Adroit Prize and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review. When not writing, she can be found enjoying a hot chocolate in her favorite café or wandering around the small town of Mostar looking for antiques and Asian seasonings.
