C. X. Hua was a finalist in Narrative’s Eleventh Annual Poetry Contest. Born in Nanjing, China, she holds an undergraduate degree from Yale and is pursuing an MAS from MIT Media Lab. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Lilacs

by C. X. Hua

That some portion of love
is braided from lying, from the magic
names of distance. Noctilucent, animal.
How often have I named for you a cherry tree
releasing soft thunder across a scene, and
the whole sky one enormous inability
to contain its own silence.

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