She’s the only one who hears me sing

Emily Lee Luan

She’s the only one who hears me sing.

The only one who hears me singing, she.

Only one, who hears my song?

One hears me sing—no, she’s the only.

Who, me? I’m my only.

Hear me sing her only song.

I sing, and there’s my only, hearing.

Sing her to only.

Sing me into hearing

I who is my only.

Hearing why my onlys, she sings.

Whose hearing ones to singing?

One, the only one,

Only my only sing me.

The she who sings, hearing all the way to one.

She’s singing, in it I hear my onely.

Emily Lee Luan is the author of 回 / Return, a winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and I Watch the Boughs, selected for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. She holds an MFA from Rutgers University–Newark.
Originally published:
April 19, 2023

Featured

Rachel Cusk

The novelist on the “feminine non-state of non-being”
Merve Emre

Books

Renaissance Women

A new book celebrates—and sells short—Shakespeare’s sisters
Catherine Nicholson

Fady Joudah

The poet on how the war in Gaza changed his work
Aria Aber

Subscribe

New perspectives, enduring writing. Join a conversation 200 years in the making. Subscribe to our print journal and receive four beautiful issues per year.
Subscribe