méiyǔ (plum Rain)

Ava Wong

I watch my grandmother at nineteen,
a girl in a village 
that has been disciplined into concrete. 

Monsoon rain swells over the harbor,
and she lets the waves 
strike her palms until they sting. 

The girl hates her thumbs—
uncalloused, plum-soft 
and warm like rain. 

From across the mountains, 
men come to touch—young, old, 
scholar, farmer, factory worker. 

They fill her doorway 
like coal-stained clouds, 
asking what they will cost. 

The girl contorts, 
water taking shape 
of whatever holds her. 

It is the season for harvest,
where her hands 
will begin to matter. 

She catches her tears,
stills the shaking 
in her fingers. 

Her palms bruise 
like fallen plums—
no one comes 
to gather them.

Ava Wong is a student at Amherst College. A 2025 Runner-Up for the NYC Youth Poet Laureate, her work has been recognized by The Allegheny Review, YouthComm Magazine, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She has performed at Federal Hall, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the New York Public Library.