"Please go through these lists / no blood from a paper cut / Check off all the items / how a pencil smells when sharpened / Turn the page around / you lick your index finger..."
"To create not just color but the colloidal suspension of color, when / At any given moment its hue cannot be sustained and then the whole structure / Comes crashing down on our unsuspecting heads, the entire bottle emptying at once..."
"am I an AI or just a fluke // what’s the difference between bluffing and machine learning // is it // is this imposter syndrome or derea l i z a t i o n..."
"fungal personas in luminous silhouette / armor of floral composites / condensed in long plates and curved helmets / live in the shifted future body..."
"The season ends and there is too much time to ponder the outcome of the crops. A successful harvest yields one half abundance, one half recalling and mourning loss..."
Karen An-hwei Lee is the author of Phyla of Joy (Tupelo 2012), Ardor (Tupelo 2008) and In Medias Res (Sarabande 2004). She authored a novel, Sonata in K (Ellipsis 2017).