"Baby Baby Child" by Shi Yang Su

Baby Baby Child

baby child with creamy wings can drag wolfsbane
out from Babylon’s Hanging Garden, they are called
angels, protectors from canvas before renaissance
baby-blue eyes, the Lord’s window for contemplation
——his secular shrine, man’s shelter to settle
baby child with golden curly hair and coral lip
my great aunt’s small copperplate drawing in the dining room
a guardian angel to shroud from iniquity and wickedness:
——b-a-b-y c-h-i-l-d
——m-y s-w-e-e-t a-n-g-e-l
——A-m-e-n

i knelt on cold, brown ground and prayed with closing eyes
orange-red candles, melting liquid, and the picture of you
i was the only seven-year-old who believed in angels
violet bruises engraved on my scraggy back
i wish you were there
telling me the blamelessness of believing in angels
i wish you did, i wish you didn’t

i have now gone way too far
to believe in what needs to be believed, a believer of none
learns from life, takes awe as gratitude, gets tested and twinges
But i still think about you at 12 am
when the cafe around the corner shuts down the lighting
the boy who cried for you under poplar trees
those secrets, childish dreams and delight, years
pour by like misty mystery, my mellow murmur:
b-a-b-y b-a-b-y c-h-i-l-d
m-y s-w-e-e-t a-n-g-e-l

Yesterday
I bought a little oil painting for my seven-year-old son
golden curly hair, navy eyes, and dimpled cheek
I told him to believe in only what his eyes see through
but he loves the painting
and hangs the little portrait in our dining room
and kneels and kisses it
like thirty years ago

Shi Yang Su

Shi Yang Su is an international student who is currently studying creative writing. She loves writing poems, and she is a firm believer in "show, don't tell.” Her favorite poet is Sharon Olds. Her poems have been published in Antimatter Dreams, Neologism Poetry Journal, Across the Margin, and Misery Tourism and her poems are forthcoming in The Bitchin’s Kitsch and Dreich Magazine ＆ Press.

Headshot: Wei Yi Ran

Photo Credit: Staff