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ISSUE 15 | SPRING 2013<br />
NUREN XIN HAIDI ZHEN:<br />
A WOMAN’S HEART IS A NEEDLE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA<br />
Karen An-hwei Lee<br />
We drop into this crevasse —<br />
Odd blue halls dragged smooth<br />
an underground glacier.<br />
by igneous stone: unseen shoulders of the world.<br />
We hear exhalations hyphens of blood and zeal<br />
where time is etched in limestone.<br />
A woman’s heart is a needle at the bottom of the sea.<br />
Far below the earth<br />
55<br />
Nuren xin haidi zhen.<br />
a girl crawls inside her own grief – rushed overflow of youth.<br />
How can you already know so much sorrow at this age, I wonder<br />
when she visits for prayer. Who abandoned you — what happened<br />
miles below the surface of your life? Did you come here to find safety<br />
and how may light enter in?<br />
The girl replies, my sorrow is not one of fashion or shame —<br />
in this underground chapel of melting ice.<br />
rather, the love I sought as a child eluded me
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