Poetry by Ellen Huang

October 20, 2022

BY ELLEN HUANG

Lying Upon My Wings

They take a while to attach. I unfold

the wings out of the packaged chrysalis &

I tie the black string about my neck.

It covers me, in lightness and blue,

the weightless swish of new wings.

In this hollow, I dress for myself;

I let in the sun for the precious gift of time,

dance in the underground at midnight,

write cross-legged in the candlelit corner,

nest myself in the hunger for stories.

flickering ~ fleeting ~ necessary.

Bless this space on rainy days

when grey and softened edges are beautiful,

when the mist of not-knowing is soothing.

cloaked in a piece of the sky, I am enough.

I lie upon my wings and breathe story,

held together by lamp-lighting pursuits, by

the simple imagination of flight.

Ellen Huang (she/her) is an aroace lover of fantasy and writer of fairy tales. She reads for Whale Road Review and is published/forthcoming in The Madrigal, Moss Puppy Magazine, Gingerbread House, Honey Literary, celestite poetry, Love Letters to Poe, Lanke Review, K’in, Serendipity Lit, Enchanted Conversation, and more. She is currently working on a chapbook of fairy tales, a collection of diverse fantasy, and an anthology of asexual horror/supernatural stories. Follow @nocturnalxlight on Twitter or worrydollsandfloatinglights.wordpress.com.

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Jennifer McBain-Stephens is a writer who lives in Iowa City, Iowa with her children and works at a science journal. She grew up in the Midwest and went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied three subjects: Drama, English, and Journalism. She has also lived in California, D.C., London, and New York, for various periods. Jennifer is the author of fifteen poetry chapbooks and four full length poetry collections (“Your Best Asset is a White Lace Dress” Yellow Chair Press (2016) “The Messenger is Already Dead,” Stalking Horse Press (2017,) “We’re Going to Need a Higher Fence,” (Lit Fest Press,) and The Vitamix and the Murder of Crows, (Apocalypse Party Press.) She is also the author of a few non-fiction books from a long time ago when she used to work as a fact checker at Rosen Publishing and Scholastic Inc. in New York City and she’d see Ric Ocasek on the subway. She also makes collages, likes to take photographs, and hosts the monthly poetry reading series Today You are Perfect, sponsored by Iowa City Poetry.