Mythmaking

Feb 05 ● BY Sharon Lin

I talk about Xiamen, Fujian
like I’m Chinese. It is expected

for the person of color to write
what they don’t know. Mythology

is the story of sole mythmakers
and my myth is personhood. I jump

from person to person for I am
good at evading capture.

On a date I talk about bats.
Bats hibernate in the winter. People give bats white-nose.

The latter is not actually so common
except speleologists enjoy the winter caves to themselves.

I am less startled by her knowledge of bats
than I am by her knowledge of the disease.

I split myself into halves
then halves again. An egg split open

creasing yolk, rolling smaller spheres
all yellow inside. If some part of me is

diseased then I must be too. But I wouldn’t
dare rewrite the myth. Goddess

of rabbits, mathematician in disguise. If I am
a person. We can begin this way.

BY Sharon Lin

Sharon Lin is a poet and essayist. Her work appears in The New York Review of Books, Denver Quarterly, Sine Theta, DIAGRAM, Wildness, and elsewhere. She lives in London, UK.

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