Tuesday poem #327 : Winston Le : black metal alloy

beta-bitten. third generation
born into werewolf diaspora—
Hannah comes of age.

bristled bare feet ice-burn,
wander lunar-chilled fields
amidst argent forest. invertebrates on all
fours. clenches teenage-berserker fangs—
metamorphous-grit the night
of tết beneath full moon rite-of-passage.

glossolalia tiếng-hư. horror
monster language bilingual-
prefixes & portmanteaus
her cleft-shapeshifter ego. 

torn vascular-scripture diary-scrawls
bad grace. namesakes— 
the blessed                              the cursed
helix-intertwine like barbwires. metal
characters reverse-engineer & phonetic-meld
vietglish incarnate—cô ấy la

alpha-transformed       Hưnnah.

Winston Le is a Vietnamese-Canadian poet and asemic artist who resides in Langley, BC. He is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and through the Surrey Poet Laureate Program was the Events Coordinator for Asians on Edge, an avant-garde Asian-Canadian diasporic literary event. His poems have been featured in both filling Station and Seagery Zine. His debut chapbook, translanguaging was shortlisted for the 2018 Broken Pencil Zine Awards. He most recently collaborated with multi-instrumentalist composer, Cameron Catalano in composing an art song as part of Art Song Lab 2019, which was performed by soprano singer, Robyn Driedger-Klassen and pianist, Rachel Iwaasa at Pyatt Hall.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan