milk

Untitled

by Chen Chen

The rain wants to ask me 

about its sun-piercing mind—

I know. 

I know this, even today

on Governors Island where even the trees’

questions are a form of heat

and I want to put on this glittery mask

as though it were a wearable mist

machine, and in fact there is a mist

machine, just a couple feet away,

but clearly that is too far

from the pores of my forehead

in which the rain, yes, is asking,

And you here? Are you the tree

I want to fall onto? To nourish?

And the pores of my forehead keep replying,

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

This poem is an excerpt from the first Milk Happening Zine, a product of the inaugural Milk Press Happening.