Sheila Dong

Sheila Dong is the author of Moon Crumbs (Bottlecap Press, 2019). Their work has appeared in SOFTBLOW, Heavy Feather Review, Juke Joint, Stone of Madness, and Rogue Agent, among other places. Sheila holds an MFA from Oregon State University and lives in Tucson, AZ. Learn more at sheiladong.carrd.co.

Daylight Saving

The farmer’s market is sunning tiny succulents
when I realize the clocks have skipped

ahead one hour. The season, growing out its hair.
We folded origami boats and left them

in puddles behind the physics building.
I said, This will never happen again.

Doppler thrum of cars (everything
sounds different when it leaves you),

the purr of fruit ripening in wooden crates,
the afternoon sloughing away in rust-

gold tatters. We stood with our ballet flats
dipped in silty water, our losses hurtling

toward us at the speed of gravity.
You shouted Bon voyage! and let

those paper hulls catch drift. I count backwards:
that was six years ago, the day with the boats.

Where I live now, I can see the farmer’s market
every weekend from my window, stalls

full of bright perishing. Down the street
the other way is the bus station.

When it closes, they leave the light on
over the lost and found.