issue 5
// poetry
On the case of the Immortal thief | TESTIMONY: Chang’e* | 200 B.C.E.—2025
by Sophia Pan
NOTE: This poem is best viewed on desktop.
after “What I Learned About the Ocean” by Fiona Jin
(This poem is in the form of a contrapuntal. The two columns can be read separately as well as together from left to right.)
On a day so parched the mirages begged for water, he drew
a sun’s quiver onto his face; painted gold streaks running
from a pack of arrows stapled into his spine. The cliff coming
towards his legs faster than I could cup calloused joints together—
closer with age, but we were still so young to know what’s
love: idolizing a hero worth a stained concert-ticket, saving a world too
good for us. Prize the possession of suburbia capitalism:
far gone. A taste of a materiality we will never anchor down for
unceasing rows of anti-aging cream, half-off. Longing at
old innocuity. That night he sought the stars for forgiveness over
his name; they all puckered it with grateful lips—Hou Yi*—
the murderer of heavenly bodies, nine shots with an angel-feathered
stabbing. He carved that last sun into a popped cap and a
blunt. An ethereal white-coated pill. I tucked it behind his
secret: he only touched me when he was afraid of letting
selfish desires come true. Here’s that truth: that day, he only watched
me go. When they came for the forbidden fruit held by
the small pearl clawing down my throat; this is
all that I know of: on
how to love
sacrifice.
*Chang’e is a mythological figure who gained immortality by swallowing an immortality pill gifted to her husband, Hou Yi, who had received the pill by shooting down nine out of ten suns.
about the author // Sophia Pan
| Sophia is a Chinese-American writer from Chicago, IL. A Youngarts winner in poetry, her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and is published in Aster Lit, DIALOGIST, and others on sophiapan.carrd.co. She is the Editor in Chief of Yin Literary, and wants you to know that platypuses glow under UV light. |
Instagram: @potatoir
wildscape. literary journal 