Two poems by Isabella Hsu

A Higher Call

“Our system is so discriminatory against Black and brown people…I want to do as much as I can to make their lives easier.”

— Kim Kardashian

I’m different now; I aim for more than fame,

And only justice can relieve my thirst:

To represent, defend, and to arraign

On end until each verdict is reversed.

I know just what it takes to get ahead—

From chats with Trump to being a sex tape star.

It helps that I don’t care what some have said

(Though it still took four tries to pass the bar).

The call to law runs deep, it’s in my blood.

I’ll make sure that my kids will be protected

From having to appear before a judge

(No matter that they’re safe—we’re well-connected).

I’m going to defend just like my dad,

Who knew that not all brown people are bad.

Anaxagoras Contemplates His Compost Pile

In evening’s lower glow, the scraps

From dinner’s vegetables are spilling

In tumbled piles—translucent skins

Of onions, ends of carrots, stems

Of eggplants touched with rot. All these

Lie where they’re left in seeming stillness,

Awaiting death beneath the soil.

But tilled and turned, they’ll live again,

Will break beyond their parts, divide

As looser atoms, other selves,

Transformed into the sediment

Of life: the hangnail or the thread

Of hair, the grime beneath a shoe,

The spot of drying blood, now brown,

The corner of a broken tooth.

Our darkened senses fail to see

This swarming mass of little worlds.

Once seething, they are settled now,

And lay themselves once more in earth,

Awaiting slow and strange rebirth.

Isabella Hsu is a writer and editor based in Milwaukee. She is currently pursuing her MFA in creative writing from the University of St. Thomas in Houston.