By Mai Der Vang
For Pos Moua
What is the name for an antelope
who grazes inside a dream
then vanishes into the
nebula’s brush.
What is the face
for refurbishing grammar
at each comma’s lip.
Whose identity never
remembers the shape of beige.
What is the word
for how to conjure
the sigh of a line hushed
beneath the flap of a thousand
shifting plumes.
What is the body of a
garden where a crescent
despairs, drifts beneath
the melt of amber.
The season is always growing
out its hooves.
One cradlesong
of your leaving is not larger
than the forest of your arrival.
To make you a noun forever.
A loss of you
cannot be equal to the loss of you.
Source: Poetry (July 2017)
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
For the Nefarious
From a recessed hollow
Rumble, I unearth as a creature
Conceived to be relentless.
Depend on me to hunt you
Until you find yourself
Counting all the uncorked
Nightmares you digested.
I will let you know the burning
Endorsed by the effort of
Matches. And you will claw
Yourself inward,...
More Poems about Arts & Sciences
The Racist Bone
I know this is a real thing, because
When I was a kid, my big sister took me
To the Capitol Theater, in my hometown
Of Rochester, NY,
And there was a movie that afternoon,
The Tingler, which starred Vincent Price,
And what I remember best...
The Last Word
I am a door of metaphor
waiting to be opened.
You’ll find no lock, no key.
All are free to enter, at will.
Simply step over the threshold.
Remember to dress for travel, though.
Visitors have been known
to get carried away.Illustration by Shadra Strickland
More Poems about Love
Love Letter
I’d like to be a shrine, so I can learn from peoples’ prayers the story of hearts. I’d like to be a scarf so I can place it over my hair and understand other worlds. I’d like to be the...
the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love
still, living like they orbit one another,
my grandfather, the planet, & grandma, his moon assigned
by some gravitational pull. they have loved long enough
for a working man to retire. grandma says she’s not tired,
she...
More Poems about Nature
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money....
A Wing and a Prayer
We thought the birds were singing louder. We were almost certain they
were. We spoke of this, when we spoke, if we spoke, on our zoom screens
or in the backyard with our podfolk. Dang, you hear those birds? Don’t
they sound loud?...