“Biology”

Web and Media Editor Bess Winter: Ting Lin’s haunting poem about a charged interaction between young people and animals captures both that back-to-school feeling and the violence of coming-of-age. May we never be so cruel as we were in the seventh grade.

Biology

In seventh grade we learned to observe
the tail fin of a goldfish under a microscope.
In pairs, we received one live fish wedged
between moist tissues. Because you dared me,
and because you were pretty, I pinched its trembling gills
while the row behind me rioted with laughter.
By the end of class half the goldfish were dead,
and Mr. K had to collect their bodies into a
white plastic bucket used for dirty mop water.
Someone asked loudly, What’s the opposite
of drowning? To which another yelled 風乾.
It was May and almost break.
We were bored to death of death.
All summer it would rain in violent bursts.
In fall I woke up and had become a woman.