WENDY CHIN-TANNER
Wendy Chin-Tanner's first collection Turn has been a finalist and semi-
finalist for several prizes including the 2010 Washington Prize and the 2011
New Criterion Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in such journals
as The Mays Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge, The Saint Ann's Review, The
Raintown Review, Praxilla, Melusine, Mascara Literary Review, Umbrella, and
Lantern Review. She serves as a poetry editor at The Nervous Breakdown,
staff interviewer at Lantern Review, and online sociology instructor at
Cambridge University, UK.
Conversations With Mother
Closed doors —
hinges loose,
knobs half-grasped —
hanging
in the air
between us.
Mind and Will
The monkey on the horse's back
careering in full gallop across the boundless fallow fields
lets the reins fall
by the edge of the clearest silver mere.
What brings them to halt
but the willingness to drink?
Strange Pussy
A lotus blossoms
in a swamp.
When plucked,
the scent
will linger,
no matter how high
its price.
But For You
For whom I had waited, for
whom unknowingly
I was opening the door.
Black Wine
We are undressing now
by the window,
shoulders draped
in dusk,
skin covered
in the fine dust
of anticipation.
My head is full
of the dinner's black wine.
Don't sleep —
We have split in two!
Tell me, who
is to blame
if not you?
Back to Front.