Poetry: “Bloat” by Ava Chen
In a poem comprised of couplets interrupted by one tercet, Ava Chen plumbs the depths of a desire which has inflated beyond the bounds of its relationship of origin. Chen captures this inflation through both the poem’s imagery—”a mouth with…breath / stuffed inside,” and “When you cook a fish, the lips open.” The form evokes this expansion, too. The couplets which feature caesuras offer two different readings, and thus broadened meaning: one where the word after the caesura is the last word of the stanza, and one where it can be read as the end of the couplet’s first line. The tercet depicts white space between “you” and “I.” And the line from Annie Cao’s poem adds another layer to the sense of longing contained here.
Read Chen’s poetry below.
Bloat
with a line from In Rome with my Mother by Annie Cao
In the absence of longing we gouge holes in mosquito nets.
The sky a mouth with too much other breath
stuffed inside. The tent flaps shiver
with or without bodies to hide. You, old star
I can only see if I look away. Touch if I don’t dream
you die first.
I cut my lip on the zipper—learn to stop
writing about pain
before the body’s allergic reaction to it.
We pull lotuses from the lake, stuff xylem
full of sugar. Choke—overflow—
our mouths into boats filling
over and over with dirty water.
Every root knots when you swallow it.
Every reflection dissipates before the light hits it.
My allergy to mosquito saliva
will always get better before it gets worse.
When you cook a fish, the lips open
before the milky eyes—
begging to be emptied, or filled. What’s worse:
an animal that does not recognize that it’s an animal
or one that refuses to?
The lake so listless
you could boil its inhabitants in it.
After every night of sex, for the first six months
I— you—
visit
the memory out of indulgence.
For the rest I do so against my will.
Ava Chen
Ava Chen (she/her) is a poet and editor from Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in Sixth Finch, The Rumpus, Salt Hill, and elsewhere, and has been recognized by The Adroit Prizes, YoungArts, Bennington College, and more. Her debut chapbook "Habitual Prayer" was chosen by Danez Smith as the winner of the 2023 Palette Poetry Chapbook Prize. You can find more of her work at avachen.carrd.co.
