red-chested & unequivocally american

Sabrina Siew

Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old Indiana University student, was shot and killed July 4, 1999, morning by Benjamin Nathaniel Smith. Smith, a white supremacist, targeted minorities in a deadly Fourth of July weekend shooting.                                                                                                                                                                                                  – Indiana Daily Student

because
we sailed
the pacific
wide with
whales
breaching
on both sides
of the boat.
small, rickety,
grandmother
at the helm,
I am here.

now
on the stone,
my sunday best,
collared shirt
& pants that
balloon out
at the hip.
jesus is close,
his breath on
my neck,
hand over
my eyes.

people
are shouting,
but my ears
hold only
ringing.
I am
american
the way
fireworks
crack open
my chest.
it is beautiful.
blooming paint,
shrapnel-kissed.
white
& blue & red
all over.

mother, tell me
the story
again of
the deers
who ate
fallen beets
the day
I was
born.

the beets
are falling,
out of
my chest,
my neck,
the bottom
of my
stomach.

will the
fawns
catch them?
I want
them to eat,
make
their tan
bellies full,
pick up
the pieces
I have left.

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Headshot of Sabrina Siew

Sabrina Siew is a Midwest-raised, New York City-living creative with a deep appreciation for the ocean, old and new friends, and sparkling fruit drinks. She is currently an MFA in Writing candidate at Columbia University, with her work appearing and forthcoming in publications like Black Warrior Review, The Georgia Review, and more. Born into a noisy Malaysian Chinese American family, she writes poems, prose, and postcards.

Cover of Black Warrior Review

Black Warrior Review

52.1

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The University of Alabama

Editor
Chinaecherem Obor

Managing Editor
Darby Power

Poetry Editor
Alayna Powell

  • Featured journal

Black Warrior Review is named for the river that borders the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Established in 1974 by graduate students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing, BWR is the oldest continuously-run literary journal produced by graduate students in the United States.

BWR publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and art twice a year. Contributors include Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners alongside emerging writers. Work appearing in BWR has been reprinted in the Pushcart Prize series, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize, New Stories from the South, and other anthologies.

Black Warrior Review is indexed in Humanities International Complete, the Book Reviews Index, and the MLA International Bibliography. ISSN: 0193-6301

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