Walnut Talks

Think about the dream that changed your atheism,
the sail on the sky in the shape of a crescent
                                                             paled and much loved.
Think about our swim in the lake, under the ice layers, where spines of weed
were indissoluble 			             like cold souls tangling.
             Fruits are plentiful. Always, like honey dripped on soil instead of bread slices
we enjoy: golden, sweet air under tree shades
                                                  & the empty walnut that proved solitude
To be true.
The truth is 
                                                 we both manipulate dreams.
             Outside, leaves of walnut trees turn vermillion, smearing seasons, just because
             you want them to.
Think about what brings another dance, another day where I don’t drown
like any past belief
	     what it takes to fly when love, 
always as the smallest of all the warm stars, dimming, withering
             nearly dying in our eyes,
                                                  yet we’re merely blinded
                                                  by a traffic light nearby.

Ziyun Peng is a bilingual writer and a student at Yale University in Comparative Literature and Human Rights Studies. Her poetry in both English and Chinese had been recognized by the Breakwater Review, the Rising Phoenix, 00s International Poetry Awards, among all. She serves as a copy-editor at the Yale Herald and a reader at the Yale Literary Magazine. Ziyun’s poetry engages closely with cross-lingual poetics, feminism, and magical-realistic traditions. She believes in poetry’s power to advocate for social justice, speaking both by and for the people.