Melody Xiao ’18 won a 2016 New Jersey Council Teachers of English Bronze Medal for Poetry.
careers i (c/sh)ould never have
1. ARTIST
in kindergarten
there was a math workbook
in which we had to draw
happy sunflowers and fish
(even then i thought it was stupid).
my teacher took one look
at my field of cacti
and said it was disappointing.
i said i didn’t like sunflowers.
2. LAWYER
one time
i dropped a piece of soap
roughly the size of my pinky nail
down the drain.
i convicted myself to my mother.
3. COMPUTER SCIENTIST
i broke a coffee maker
(one of the keurig ones)
trying to turn it on.
4. VETERINARIAN
there was a short period of time
during which i went everywhere
with a stuffed penguin.
on october second,
i said it was its birthday
(because it was).
my friends told me i was stupid.
now i know
not to celebrate animal birthdays.
5. POLITICIAN
what’s a judicial branch?
6. MARINE BIOLOGIST
the one time i went snorkeling
i loved it.
the dark shapes moving amongst
the sharp rocks on the seafloor
were full of mystery.
it was the kind of place
you would expect to find
sunken ships
or mermaids.
i cried when i got back on shore
(our hour-long rental was over).
a little later
i learned that someone had been
killed by a shark
not an hour before we went into the water.
and now the ocean scares me.
7. HISTORIAN
america is three centuries old.
china is four thousand years old.
history is…older.
i have maybe half a gigabyte of storage
on my brain.
and that’s generous.
8. SCIENTIST
i would say my mind
is equivalent to a one-watt lightbulb
but i don’t know what a watt is.
9. ATHLETE
it’s not abs.
it’s flabs.
10. TRANSLATOR
if i said that 你是一个笨蛋
was a good thing
you would never know.