Kathleen Frank
Rachael Ray Tells Me to Use EVOO
Chanlee Luu
on all of my dishes
but I’m just 12, watching 30 Minute
Meals, whisking
of the day when I’m grown
and can cook seemingly
impossible things like Lamb Shakshuka.
Despite my best wishes,
recycling plastic bottles
and six-pack rings can’t save the fishes
or turtles. When I win trophies for good
grades, my smile is a glinting
blade through my braces.
Sometimes, I’m processing
quietly, but I don’t know why.
Or if anyone can hear. This is
not how I thought puberty
worked. Every year, it gets harder
to ignore. Even with all the blending.
My brain cannot chop.
Even with all the cries for help,
the Western leaders will not barter
their smirks. So olive trees burn. White
phosphorus burns. Hospitals topple.
Bread is baked. Plastic collects rain.
Palestine dreams. But still, martyrs
are made daily. I didn’t know then
the price of oil. I was just
eavesdropping on adults.
Chanlee Luu is a Vietnamese-Chinese American writer from Southern Virginia. She received her MFA in creative writing from Hollins University and BS in chemical engineering from UVA. Her work can be found in Snowflake Magazine, Tint Journal, Honey Lit, The Offing, diaCRITICS, and Seventh Wave, among others. She is the winner of the 2024 Jean Feldman Poetry Award from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House; her debut collection, The Machine Autocorrects Code to I, was published on October 8. One of her poems was on display at “50 years of HOPE and HA-HAs,” a Vietnamese American art exhibition.
Next Up: Hungry Hands by Margo Helmke