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Shoving Lanthanides and Actinides to a corner of my head, I recite B, C, N, O, F like a sacred psalm, organic elements swirling in the universe, my brain wrapped in Neon jiggles for you, like Iron flashing its yearning, if I could twist a pair of pliers to change your mind, implacable and inert Deuterium, gaze at your Halogen smile once more, short-lived, yet flares desire, I would climb Alkaline earth, sail on Transition oceans, surf the Milky Way, just to taste Sodium on your brow, Titanium on your lips, ice to me, warm when you listen to Frank Sinatra in a tuxedo crooning “Strangers in The Night” over airwaves, I’ll ride and dive ultrasounds, like a crow picking wild berries, like an old dog rummaging dirt, I’ll sift and sniff through your hallowed ground, Coeur d’Alène, I’ll scrape soil with fingers and coins forged from bronze to soften your heart, maybe then, pulling arteries apart, I’ll unearth your element, like Phosphorus meeting air, let us ignite one last time.

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Christine H. Chen was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar before settling in Boston where she worked as a research chemist. Her fiction has appeared or forthcoming in The Pinch, SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, trampset, Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2023, Best Microfiction 2024, Best Small Fictions 2024, and other journals and anthologies. She also dabbles in genre fiction and has stories in Deadly Drabble Tuesdays, Time & Space Magazine. Her first cozy mystery was published in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023. She is a recipient of the 2022 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Read her stories at www.christinehchen.com.