By Duy Doan
The man I pulled tonight
carried a load of books.
When I felt him watching
me uphill, I grimaced.
He gave me lunar
cakes the size
of two camel humps.
When I answered him,
I smiled to his face.
He wore the moonlight
in his specs. Pant
seams clean as the embroidery
work of his book covers.
One cannot grow rich
without a bit of cleverness.
Should I have shown
him the secret of my deft
touch? The Circling Moon,
the Graceful Swan? How East
Wind beats West Wind
if other two winds say so?
Snow falls on cedars.
Source: Poetry (October 2017)
Poet Bio
-processed.jpg)
Duy Doan is the author of We Play a Game, winner of the 2017 Yale Series of Younger Poets. His work has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Cortland Review, and elsewhere. A Kundiman fellow, he received an MFA in poetry from Boston University, where he serves as director of the Favorite Poem Project.
More Poems about Activities
Vagrants and Loiterers
You got that clean waistcoat,
the bright white of a well-tailored
shirt, you got those loose-as-sacks
slacks and some spit-polished shoes,
and you know, whether you are looking
like money, or about to take a stroll,
to tilt that hat like you own
the world; yeah, smoke...
Y2K
When I was “in despair” (the dark days
when I actually used such terms)
I noticed the behavior of animals —
sleep when tired, eat when hungry
That made a lot of sense to me
and yet I felt different
...
More Poems about Arts & Sciences
Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
I play the egg
and I play the triangle
I play the reed
and I play each angle
I play the lyre
and I play the lute
I play the snare
and I play the flute
I play the licorice stick
and I play the juke
I play the kettle
and...
Proem
Not, in the saying of you, are you
said. Baffled and like a root
stopped by a stone you turn back questioning
the tree you feed. But what the leaves hear
is not what the roots ask. Inexhaustibly,
being at one time what was to...
More Poems about Love
Blade, Unplugged
It’s true: I almost never
smile, but that doesn’t mean
I’m not in love: my heart
is that black violin
played slowly. You know that
moment late in the solo
when the voice
is so pure you feel
the blood in it: the wound
between rage
and complete surrender. That’s
where...
Sunshower
Some people say the devil is beating
his wife. Some people say the devil
is pawing his wife. Some people say
the devil is doubling down on an overall
attitude of entitlement toward
the body of his wife. Some people
say the devil won’t need to...