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By John Yau

Come live with me
And we will sit


Upon the rocks
By shallow rivers


Come live with me
And we will plant acorns


In each other's mouth
It would be our way


Of greeting the earth
Before it shoves us


Back into the snow
Our interior cavities


Brimming with
Disagreeable substances


Come live with me
Before winter stops


To use the only pillow
The sky ever sleeps on


Our interior cavities
Brimming with snow


Come live with me
Before spring


Swallows the air
And birds sing


John Yau, "Ill-Advised Love Poem" from Further Adventures in Monochrome. Copyright © 2012 by John Yau.  Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press.

Source: Further Adventures in Monochrome (Copper Canyon Press, 2012)

  • Living
  • Love
  • Nature

Poet Bio

John Yau
Born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1950 to Chinese emigrants, Yau attended Bard College and earned an MFA from Brooklyn College in 1978. A noted art critic and curator, Yau has also published many works of art criticism and artists’ books. His first book of poetry, Crossing Canal Street, was published in 1976. Since then, he has won acclaim for his poetry’s attentiveness to visual culture and linguistic surface. He teaches at the Mason Gross School of the Arts and Rutgers University, and lives in New York City. See More By This Poet

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