Poetry: Two Poems by Grace Shuyi Liew

You Understood the Trajectory of Colors

This love, it hurts, a myth yawning to be seen and still 
resists exposure,

too much, then too little, 

dense transparency as when space begins 

to quiver
in a word, destabilize, let the light preen the course ahead,

find symmetry where comfort curves, cultivates, white sands that 
whirlpool, we can 

hang in the drag of purified nights,

can we? Bind a long dawn and endure: a daily reenactment
until I realize the old songs don’t hurt anymore,

a heart that landed from 
hearsay cannot hurt a lifetime.

Film Camera

My favorite part of you is inside of the thigh. A long day
emptied of unease. Your favorite part of me I keep hidden 
from the rest of the world. Microscopic senses 
lifted over shore by an accidental flood. I skip along
the levee while you sip a paper cup of coffee. We lick our fingers
after a good meal. A stranger stops and offers to take our photos.
Our pleasure just that uncontainable. We roost inside reels of film. 
Images of us we cannot see until the whole roll is finished. 
Go! You say. I run and you click the shutter. Time winds back. 
We cannot possibly capture everything. Light receives us
like an activity. Dancing on the square two apiece. 
Tumbling into new shops pretending to be art buyers.
Waiting softly to get ready. Our vehement smells clashing, 
the lenient type of dispute that precipitates laughter. 
Taking turns at the bathroom mirror. Go over there a bit! 
Shoulders arguing some more before relaxing. Fine you can 
stick by my side! Strutting out to dinner and the concierge saying 
this way, please, ladies. I let you let me walk ahead of you.

About Grace Shuyi Liew

Grace Shuyi Liew is a Malaysian lesbian poet and writer. She is an Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives. Her work has been published in Kenyon Review, West Branch, Black Warrior Review, Best of the Net, and more. Her book of poetry, Careen (Noemi Press, 2019), was named Electric Literature’s “4 Unmissable Poetry Books of 2019,” among other honors.