Yujia Li
PISSER CLAM

Learned today that clams break
with the slightest pressure
between forefinger and thumb.

I jumped at the crack, admiring
a broken shell, gray and soft
and more vulnerable than I—

a bed of them clamoring northeast, pressed
ridge to ridge against each other,
their mantles against the shore

like an embrace. Thereafter, another
timezone away, my grandma is hit
with a rock, for no reason other than a trip

for groceries and some broken English
spoken to strangers, a cracked skull opening
like a letter warning each of her daughters—

reciting this poem a thousand times until the gap
between mandarin oranges and English pears
disappears.

What does it mean to harden a shell? Does it not
mean learning each American vowel while
being a quiet girl, a thousand good girls hiding

behind a white man’s book?

Yujia Li is a senior at William Mason High School in Mason, Ohio. Her work has been recognized by the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and she participated in the 2022 Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Double Yolk, an emerging publication featuring poets of color and their journeys.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #41.

Submit to Cleaver!