art and poetry journal · 2024

Joanna Sit

Other Than Longing

Every traveler knows a kind of despair other than longing
And waits by the gate of departure where other than longing

She thinks of a place she once knew–another country
Floating in a rose-scented air other than longing

Where the wild sparrow feeds on the sunflower’s heart
Then turns its eyes upward with a stare other than longing

Even the tourist can taste the bitterness of someone else’s salt
The desolation (climbing someone else’s stairs) other than longing

We are all orphaned islands the mountain left behind
Drifting across ruined seas broken spheres other than longing

Every exile knows the irreversible currents of the tailwind
That push the flight beyond a nightmare other than longing

Everything we can’t carry must be abandoned must be lost
And there is nothing to fear other than longing

At the end of the line we turn back for a final look
Take inventory of all that disappear other than longing

What in this world are we waiting for?
What else is there other than longing?

Every passenger at the gate answers the same:
I have nothing to declare other than longing

Joanna Sit was born in China and grew up in New York City, where she lives with her family. She studied poetry with Allen Ginsberg and Susan Fromberg Schaeffer at Brooklyn College and now teaches Creative Writing at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York. She is the author of My Last Century (2012), In Thailand with the Apostles (2014), and most recently, Track Works. Her poem “Timescape: The Age of Oz” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2016. She is working on an ethnographic narrative called The Reincarnation of Red and another book of poems called Fantastic Voyage.