To: Yellow Fever

 

 

I know I am alive and convenient.

A piece of the whole. A body

in an ocean of bodies.

A quart of seawater can still be the sea.

I am just a smaller vessel. I know,

you do not understand the language

of my grief. Mistake its sound

for sloshing, my silence for willingness

always grasping at surfaces, the circumference

of a wrist — trying to comprehend

a smaller infinity.

 

Jasmine Cui is eighteen years old and is majoring in Political Science, Economics, and Chemistry at SUNY Geneseo. She aspires to be like her parents who are first-generation Americans that fought an extraordinary battle for their place in this country. She is the founder and co-Editor in Chief of The Ellis Review.