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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)

  • Arts & Sciences
  • Love
  • Nature

Poet Bio

Mai Der Vang
Mai Der Vang is the author of Yellow Rain (Graywolf Press, 2021) and Afterland (Graywolf Press, 2017). See More By This Poet

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