• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to footer

Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

  • Home
  • About
  • Issues
    • February 2019 Winter Poems
    • Issue Twelve
    • Issue Eleven
    • August 2018 Summer Poems
    • Issue Ten
    • Issue Nine
    • February 2018 Eleven Poems
    • Issue Eight
    • Issue Seven
    • Summer17: 12Poems
    • Issue Six
    • Issue Five
    • Winter Poems 2017
    • Issue Four
    • Issue Three
    • Summer Issue
    • Issue Two
    • Issue One
  • FAQs
  • Submit
  • Masthead
  • Contact
  • Donate

Lunch at Elementary School

By Albert Zhang

The lunch line, swirling

Full of anxious adolescents

Waiting to feed in a frenzy

Of hotdogs and burgers

 

Like a rambunctious dragon

Upon discovery of its prey:

A lone rabbit, helpless

 

Like me, sitting at the end

Of the long, plastic table

My black lunch box on it

Containing baozi and noodles

Wearing a red tee from

the Chinese New Year’s Festival

Trying to hide from my predators.

 

Light blue trays,

The surplus of ketchup on their hotdogs and burgers,

Neat hair,

Bright polos

Mark them as a different species.

 

I try to camouflage myself

Inching closer to the group

Pretending that I belong

In order to avoid detection

But the baozi gives me off.

 

Once I take a bite of it

Its luscious contents and savory flavor

Creamier and less sweet than ketchup

Waft out from the meatball inside

Into the noses of the predators.

 

All eyes turn to me

Like a tiger stares its prey

Before it pounces

Catching me mid-bite into my second baozi.

 

Suddenly, I’m

All alone, helpless

About to be devoured.

 

 

Albert Zhang is Head Editor for The Westminster Schools Bi-Line, the school newspaper. He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Evolutions Magazine, Westminster’s annual creative writing magazine. Albert attended The Kenyon Review workshop, SCAD as a Silver Scholar, was published in Celebrating Art and exhibited in Atlanta’s High Museum, Capitol, and National Fair.

 

 

 

 

Albert Zhang is Head Editor for The Westminster Schools Bi-Line, the school newspaper. He is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Evolutions Magazine, Westminster’s annual creative writing magazine. Albert attended The Kenyon Review workshop, SCAD as a Silver Scholar, was published in Celebrating Art and exhibited in Atlanta’s High Museum, Capitol, and National Fair.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Nine

Reader Interactions

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Editor’s Note
  • Shalom,in translation:
  • A Poem Not About Love
  • razing the jungle
  • Fire

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • June 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • December 2017
    • September 2017
    • July 2017
    • May 2017
    • March 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • September 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • March 2016

    Categories

    • Art
    • Cover Art
    • Editor Note
    • Fiction
    • Non-Fiction
    • Poetry

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries RSS
    • Comments RSS
    • WordPress.org

    Copyright © 2019 · Site by Sumy Designs, LLC