Olivia Sio Tse
Winter 2025 | Poetry
She Kissed the Generator
Because its outline puffed
like a stomach and her arms
divested from their grip
because she had tried to kick
the alternator
twice she heard orchids scream
out for milk
so scalloped is their formula
and earth already flushing
varsity
she could smell the ceiling
vanish island
its dangling fuel a salt lick
she felt like fixing
because one time she had seen
her dad or his dad try a similar
trick to tease the lights back on.
Olivia Sio Tse is a poet from Texas and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Second Factory, Bennington Review, and elsewhere.