Cathy Linh Che and the 'cinema of our younger self'

I Lift My Lamp

Cathy Linh Che

I am waiting for a life
that fills like water
into a tall glass.

I look into the mirror
waiting for beauty
to appear.

The unsatisfied architect
so stingy
with compliments.

In New York City,
I crave something sweet.
Beyond this palette

of slate and gray.
My body bloats
with the cold.

Now, summer arrives,
and I refuse
to eat.

I want to step
into the cinema
of my younger self.

Desire rising
twenty degrees.
I want to touch

every ghost
on the street.

courtesy of Wreck Park
 

Cathy Linh Che is a Vietnamese American born in 1980 in Los Angeles. Her Vietnamese parents arrived in America from a refugee camp in the Phillipines, where they spent a year after fleeing Vietnam in 1975, after the fall of the US backed South Vietnamese Government.

She is the author of the poetry collection, Split, published in 2014, which won the Kundiman Poetry Prize in 2012. She is co-editing an anthology of poetry and prose from the children of the Vietnam War called Inheriting the War. She is a poet, teacher, and arts administrator living in Brooklyn, NY.

 

Her website is here and here Twitter feed is here.

Interviews with Cathy Lin Che are here, here and here  

 

Earlier blog posts featuring her poetry are here and here