The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: She Has Dreamt Again of Water by Stephanie Niu

Wardrobe Best Dressed 
This selection, chosen by guest editor Samantha Duncan, is from She Has Dreamt Again of Water by Stephanie Niu, released by Diode Editions in 2022.

Onion Grass

Sometimes a sweetness in the mornings. The smell
of sun on the heated leaves. Sometimes the memory
of your brother climbing a pine tree in silence.
The field behind the tennis courts where you dug onion grass,
snacked on the pungent leaves, the spice, the juice, imagined
if you ever had to leave in a hurry you would come here,
where there are things to eat. Onions by day.
Water from the creek. The only part of escape
that is easy. Digging until dirt covers your nails,
knuckles, wrist, digging until you can lift
the glowing bulb free, its own small miracle,
bright and swinging from the grass in your fist.

Stephanie Niu is a poet and author of She Has Dreamt Again of Water, winner of the 2021 Diode Chapbook Prize. She received her degrees in symbolic systems and computer science from Stanford University. Her poems have appeared in Southeast Review, Poets Readings the News, Breakwater Review, and Storm Cellar, as well as scientific collaborations including the 11th Annual St. Louis River Summit. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Study/Research Award for work on decolonizing historical narratives through digital techniques, including podcast production, map-making, and digital visualization. She currently lives on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.

Samantha Duncan is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Playing One on TV (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2018) and The Birth Creatures (Agape Editions, 2016), and her work has appeared in BOAAT, SWWIM, Meridian, and The Pinch. She lives in Houston.

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