the water a guest inside of ussalty-sweet and swimminghow water does and youa guest in your own housea watery worda guest on the tonguea gust of air across wet lips a voiceechoing back and backthough nothing’s left to prove it nopapers no shred of evidence not oneletter not one mark upon the pageno papersno papersyour papersfor a period of three long yearsan ocean away from where you are nota guest where are you frompeople ask me ask people who looklike me look like anything butthe blankness of a pagelet me turn then to the colorof water into ink ground against a stonethe words carried back by each water guesteach bringer of news and love and tribulation hereare the words that belong to youhere are the words that belong
水客
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From Water Guest by Caroline M. Mar; previously published in CALYX. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. © 2025 by Caroline M. Mar. All rights reserved.
Caroline M. Mar is the great-granddaughter of a railroad laborer and the author of Water Guest, the Editors’ Selection for the 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series. She is also the author of Special Education (Texas Review Press), which won the 2019 X. J. Kennedy Prize, and the chapbook Dream of the Lake (Bull City Press). Carrie is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, a member of Rabble Collective, and serves on the board of Friends of Writers. She is a longtime ninth grade health educator in her hometown of San Francisco, and lives in Oakland, CA. She has been granted residencies at Hedgebrook, Ragdale, and Storyknife, among others. You can find her online at carolinemar.com.
“Mar contends with the white-gloved history of the American West, forcing us to hold our breaths, to keep our eyes open, to face what has been hidden, to dive into the murkiness beneath our feet. She doesn’t hold her tongue in this searing collection. ‘What is the melting point of history?’ she dares. Incendiary—so hot—this book; it just might burn shit down.”
—Tommye Blount
“In a probing search for lost connection, through powerful poems centered on Tahoe’s icy lake, Mar resists the erasure of her Chinese ancestors who labored there (not an ink stroke left in their own hand), inquiring into their silence in eloquent language of unstoppable invention, evocative lyricism, and historical correction.”
—Eleanor Wilner
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