Such were the years, a dumb stuffed thing
to say, if truth is we all grow old un-
observed, limbs flail only halfway up
a flight, where does dark begin settling
my little bones. I dream and do love
to have them, blue fish
in a lake, my head more tipped up than down
under damp earth. Some days others like deer
from the shot, peeled back, how nuisance I
find trees dressed in wild
green light. The years come, unstitched
a face, saddled as one would a heavy beast
for walking, likely I became then a member
of heaven, put up, the years come and reaching
their long wet hands.
Listen:
Wendy Xu is the author of You Are Not Dead (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013), and several chapbooks. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry, POETRY, Gulf Coast, Everyday Genius, The Volta, and elsewhere. She co-edits and publishes iO: A Journal of New American Poetry/iO Books, and lives in Brooklyn. You can find more of her work on her blog.
Feature image by Walter Dahn, Untitled, 1986. Acrylic, varnish, spraypaint and collage on canvas, 250 x 200cm.
Courtesy Sprüth Magers
Click on the image to enlarge.
