Mercury with Salmon Belly

Sabrina Guo

          ​to my grandmother (1937-2020)

Grandma lived on the river shore
            all her life. Photos of her smile etched
in my mind as she puffs her chest, 
            clenches nets of fish. She found out 
she was pregnant the day Grandpa took 
            that photo—a few months later, high
doses of mercury, the doctor said. 
            A miscarriage.

The mercury was undetectable
            in the bodies of the fish, but they knew 
the sky littered doses of it 
            far along the river. There were
chickens, also, few enough 
            to name. But soon, the riverbeds
dried to bone—they had no choice
            so Grandma and Grandpa began 

eating the fish they preserved. They collected 
            rain for drinking water, sheltered
like chickens inside, once 
            the sun burnt their skin. 

Grandma told me this story 
            every time we ate the salmon we caught 
at Amur River: You know, she starts, slicing
            a pink belly, you don’t know what’s in ‘em 
till it hits you. I always hugged her 
            from the back, wrapped my hands around 
her stomach, careful of the cesarean scar. It was
            a few shades darker than salmon belly. Every night 

beside me—for months—she’d thumb her lip
            in prayer, say it’s all just children and love
and blood and bone. She’d repeat it with precision
            as if language itself could extract the mercury 

from her blood, her tissue, her bone, her brain, her
            memory—bit by poisonous bit.

Sabrina Guo is a first-year at Yale University. Sabrina is a winner of the Adroit Prizes for Poetry, the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, and the Civic Expression Award and nine national medals from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

ABOUT THE ART | What It Means to Be a Woman in Art by Lily Lin, 2023. Lily Lin is a student at Yale University.