BY APRIL LIM
Sonnet for the Cambodian Boat People
We are nothing but clouds stuck in the sea,
Whispering for winds that may never come,
How far do boats sail when they have to flee?
Keep the whispers to a quiet, no hums.
If we are caught, they kill us—No mercy,
Wild pirates with no laws at their core,
So keep mute, stay sharp, throats dry and thirsty,
They’ll slay the men and keep women as whores.
We’re almost ashore, 12 days and 12 nights—
Strangers at first, tied together by luck,
If we reach land, we’ll scatter: bird in flights,
To experience salvation awestruck.
Over jasmine and chrysanthemum sips,
I know our story will land on false lips.
Refugee Alchemy
Escape: 1.5oz of gold per body,
no guarantee of an intact soul, Conscious can never
revert: War will
transmute a human's mind.
Received: a familiar body that cannot essence
the same. Cannot pray without lying, without spilling
tears into land: one
exhumed of your father.
Forge: matriarchal heirloom—
gold wire, pebble gems.
Earth to your daughter's wrist. If she has to flee,
she will pay with this.
Charm: silk spun red rioting
incense and gilded prayers, tighten
twines, blood slips loose snarling legacy
into her veins—
She: elixir of salt forest prayers,
wears trauma like a birthright. Palms cradling full
moon spilling from lakeside reflection, she pools
into her skin.
April Lim is a Chinese Cambodian American writer from Houston, TX. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Houston where she was awarded the Howard Moss Prize in Poetry and the Bryan Lawrence Prize in Poetry. She has received fellowships and scholarships from Tin House, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, The Watering Hole, Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and elsewhere. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Palette Poetry, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Bayou Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at Oklahoma State University where she is an Editorial Assistant for the Cimarron Review.