Excerpt from Cecilia by K-Ming Chang, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I kept my hands light, stuffing them with feathers and puppeting them in public, teaching them to flit from surface to surface. But they were not alone: they were hunted by another pair of hands, ghost hands grown in the darkness of my body, slicking out of me and into the toilet bowl. Shiny and skinless as organs. When they reached for me, I shut the lid and flushed.

That night, I lay in bed between Ma and Ama. Their creek of sweat hollowed out the valley where I slept. My hands doubled on each wrist, and I felt the weight of both pairs burdening the air, pulping my pelt, smearing me into the sheets. The knowledge of touch was touch.

Her heat hemmed me in, electrified the air. She was smiling, and her teeth were a single rind of light. I stood slowly, shifting away from their sour radius. The fresh towels clamped in my armpits were slopping out of shape, expanding in the steam of my sweat.

Excerpted from Cecilia by K-Ming Chang. Copyright © 2024 by K-Ming Chang. Excerpted by permission of Coffee House Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.