art is a funny thing

As you know, there’s good art and
bad art. There’s also art that I understand
and art I don’t understand.
Sometimes, they overlap.

So there’s art I don’t understand
but respect, and art I don’t
understand
and have no clue if
good or not.

But this – this I understand.
Not only do I understand, I know
for a fact that it’s bad.
So bad! I used to
make
art
just like that.

Immigrant Poeting

Mid-sentence, I pause
and think —
You know what?
Pretty fucking good
my English
is

                                        NOW
                                        WATCH ME
                                        RHYME

THREE SMALL POEMS FOR ONE BIG CAT

i.

To think,
inside a lion, a snake, a rat,
and a cockroach,
lie a soul as
tender and sweet as yours

I contemplate letting them
nibble my fingers too.

ii.

You must know
something about my love,
but do you know

when you sleep
on my lap, I watch
the back of your ear
                              twitch
and picture you stroking
my hair.

Suddenly,
this urge to
purrrr

iii.

How many cat poems
can one write
before she becomes
a cat poet?

Cause I will
do it.

*

Yifei Glass is a poet based in Brooklyn, New York. Glass wants to write prose poems that fly low to the ground, and if anything, she’d like to be remembered for her poems about her cat, who she lives with by the water. English is her second language.