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“Natalie Wee’s inventiveness in Beast at Every Threshold queers the reader’s expectations with gravity and delight—the readings and misreadings cause an alignment of psychic, natural, worldly, and political precarities balanced in the speaker’s body.”
—RAJIV MOHABIR, AUTHOR OF CUTLISH AND ANTIMAN: A HYBRID MEMOIR
“Through imaginative and dexterous forms, Natalie Wee invites the reader to stand face-to-face with language. Yes, language has a body, and it is evident in these poems, which tenderly dress the wounds from history, longing, and ‘the world we must pass through to arrive at ourselves.’”
—HIEU MINH NGUYEN, AUTHOR OF NOT HERE
“Natalie Wee’s searing lyric accesses an embodied record where shards of language reveal fractures made by repeating generational violence. Wee becomes a portal between worlds, teeming with polyphonic utterances … that pulse through the sinews of the queered immigrant body.”
—VANESSA ANGÉLICA VILLARREAL, AUTHOR OF BEAST MERIDIAN
“ Beast at Every Threshold is electric with the possibilities of reading. As queer desire might abide beside loss, Natalie Wee refracts resistance and love through pop culture to formal influences, encountering the grief of surviving and witnessing ‘after the fact.’”
—YANYI, AUTHOR OF THE YEAR OF BLUE WATER
POEMS
NATALIE WEE
BEAST AT EVERY THRESHOLD Copyright © 2022 by Natalie Wee
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.
ARSENAL PULP PRESS Suite 202 – 211 East Georgia St. Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6 Canada arsenalpulp .com
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program), for its publishing activities.
Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the xʷmə θ kʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories where our office is located. We pay respect to their histories, traditions, and continuous living cultures and commit to accountability, respectful relations, and friendship.
Cover artwork and design by Mia LaPine (Litarnes) Text design by Jazmin Welch Edited by Jasmine Gui Proofread by Alison Strobel
Printed and bound in Canada
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:
Title: Beast at every threshold : poems / Natalie Wee.
Names: Wee, Natalie, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210388595 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210388609 | ISBN 9781551528830 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551528847 (HTML)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PR9570.S53 W443 2022 | DDC 821/.92—dc23
Even flying is born out of nothing.
—LI-YOUNG LEE
Any adjective can be true if you cry hard enough.
—HIEU MINH NGUYEN
CONTENTS In Defence of My Roommate’s Dog THRESH Rina Sawayama Sings “I Wanna Be Where You Are” Inside Joke Bordersong “Can You Speak English?” Field Notes: Time Travel Asami Writes to Korra for Three Years An Abridged History Skin Hunger, with Waves Blood Triptych Frequent Flyer Program Because “San Junipero” Said the Queer Bar Is a Marriage Hall Music Theory: Opus Self-Portrait as Monster Dating Sim Coping Mechanisms In My Next Life as a Fruit Tree Ten Years after Diagnosis In the Mood for Love Self-Portrait as Pop Culture Reference Birthright HOLD Wei Ying Tells Me about Resurrection Instructions for a Transmutation Circle Immigrant Aubade Phoning Home to Tell My Grandmother I Survived a Hate Crime Asami Watches Korra in the Rear-View Interruption: B-Side Favourite TV Trope Someone in Some Future Time Listen I Love You Joy Is Coming I Always Bet on Losing Dogs Sayang En Route to the Sixth Station, Chihiro Counts the Clouds After the Atlanta Spa Shootings, We Sat in a Field Self-Portrait as Beast Index That Time I Thought Phoebe Bridgers Sang, “When I Grow Up, I’m Gonna Look Up from My Phone and See My Wife” When My Grandmother Begins to Forget Future-Proof Etymology of Minotaur When I Say I Want to Learn Your Mother’s Recipe, I Mean I Am My Dreaming Self Getting Better at This Acknowledgments Notes
IN DEFENCE OF MY ROOMMATE’S DOG
humping her stuffed bear all day, even when guests laugh & turn their eyes
to a ceiling that will never demand the ugliest lie they’ve practised in the name
of survival. A decade ago, I watched my classmate open a doorway beneath the desk
because she wanted escape & thought to summon one with desolate, shaking fingers.
I don’t know if I’m real when I’m not being touched: the loneliest prayer
of any small god. Humiliate translated: 丢脸 , to lose face. Once, I lost myself
& found an instrument of forgetting, let someone’s lover fashion from the ocean
of my solitude a shoreline for their sins to wash up on. Yes, I was an animal
crafting fables in the language of my body’s flood. It’s amazing what a little death
earns you. We imagine a funeral each time we peel back fresh need: wait for me,
it’s cold , I’m scared . Maybe the trade-off for resurrection is shame vast enough to kill
us & that becomes another execution to tongue our way out of. Look. Here are primal
& ungainly ways we tether ourselves to the earth. Here is this dog fucking something
she imagines loves her, tiny heart thundering towards some vast & unknowable
glory, in the name of not vanishing just a little longer.
THRESH
RINA SAWAYAMA SINGS “I WANNA BE WHERE YOU ARE”
through the speakers / the lovers’ lips blade-thin / as if whittling their faces /
to an echo / is to understand / the thing itself / how a voice can be slick rainfall /
poured over a metal carcass / it’s no surprise / machinery betrays them /
everyone finds ways / to leave / decades later a child takes a plane / a man takes
a mistress / but in 1981 a Datsun slinks past the city / where dogs slobbered /
by the makeshift stadium / & a single word / whistled through enough teeth /
became legend / snap of jaws / in the blue evenings / already vanishing /
as they beg / hands from the hours / she licks ravenous decades / from her gums /
& tongues chill air into cavity / awaiting the tow truck / to deliver them / whole
as newborns / to shiver beneath / a motel’s naked bulb / here / an ode
to failure / so simple / it allowed them this / tender mercy of staying close / enough
to feel / your pulse baby / what is the name / for where the chorus
splits / the star-dappled mangroves / & highways thronged
with mountains / harvested first-hand / from ink
-wet pages / the universe poetic / of course / she made this up /
adorned this recollection / with the boy’s sprawl / on the hood / instead of his palm /
at the wheel / all urgent faux leather / tunnelling through wind / the day
steeped in language / only the body speaks / years breaking bone
-bright / over their eyes / as the radio shivers / into static / yes she knows /
every song / idols its own end
INSIDE JOKE
 
about that time w/ the cat & can of tuna which ended w/ me meowing up a tree
did u know cats learned 2 meow by imitating the cry of a human child
      each sound an imperfect, tender concession
we meow back: ouroboros
we meow back: Wiki says it’s mirroring: we echo what we love
2 keep it
I love it when I text A & J “usual tn?” & we all reach Rol San for dim sum at 7
my bb sends a pic of 2 otters + the word “us”
translated: we exist in every iteration of touch made possible
yk there’s a science 2 the sequence of butterfly emoji + rocket emoji + flamingo emoji
a pic of Patrick Star shovelling dirt in his mouth can mean
       I’m upset right now or attention please
 
understanding memes is a kind of alchemy imho
after finals we’d toss our textbooks & scream no more mugging!
ma was mugged on Adelaide, S sobbed that Toronto winter
depending on who’s talking, a sound/image/action has infinite lives
fuck language purists, goodbye only exists bc sum1 wrote god
       be with ye in shorthand
BTS said there’s a whale that speaks only to itself, born w/ everything it knows
already in its blood
every instance I wrote 2 reach u thru this page
is its own kind of holy
tbh, we are so damn lucky to be loved like this
      w/ endless ways 2 bless one another
      our voices crowned w/ something new      
               & tender
      & no one else’s
BORDERSONG
On a hostile beach,      eyes fixed
on glimmering edges      of an old world, you
were already forgetting      your real name. Not the one
borne from parents’ care      ful knowledge of glamour
ous silver screens & all-      american sweethearts, each
syllable leashing your neck      in preparation for years 
of saddling new tongues      to waiting throats.
No, not that. The one once given      by a fortune teller
who saw a distant horizon burn      ing to silence.
The birth name that means      iridescent. Means
radiant puncture seen only      in the absence of white
light. But hush. Be a pet      that stays soft. Be
careful      to call yourself      lucky. Open your eyes,
girl. No one looks          like you. Only wants
wear your warm skin      for sleek exotic fur,
stalk the place      you were born      & own it.
You stand      on so many graves    
built out of any      one a little too
foreign. The invisible collar      you call flesh.
Try not to be      wound. No grievances.
Perfect accent. Always      laugh. Learn
how many reinventions      it takes to become
someone other      than dirty ungrateful      [      ]
when you are always already      Other