Serenade by Weijia Pan

 

So little of my work gives you joy.
My vocab so little. The moon cares about so little.

From you I’ve heard so little. The window unit drips.
So little love you gave to the azaleas that I grew.

When I write, I think so little of you,
as little as I think of that snoring man on the train,

but if you’re a little disturbed (wherever you sleep),
I will gulp you down, shelter you like a tunnel.

But so little we’ve experienced together.
So little has been solved. Just now,

the window is broken. The moon flashes like a QR code.
So little amazement in a world that promises so little.

The little flies buzz about the lamp—where do they go?
Equally daring against the sun, a mild winter

might kill them all. So many little selves
are wasted on battlefields. So little growing

to build a nation. So little can you do
to bail me out of my dreams! So little these days

I catch you sleeping, pretending for a moment
that my thick hands can lie their way into quilts.

Weijia Pan is the author of Motherlands, selected by Louise Glück for the 2023 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and published by Milkweed Editions in 2024. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, Georgia Review, and elsewhere. He is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

2 June 2025