the INLAID EAR

I was two months without a publisher while I asked and asked this game universe to come to this earnest, hopeful boy with a new smear of butter. And I said, I see I won't be famous; still I'd like to have the volume, somehow to have my book complete, though the destiny of poems is humble. And I asked and asked the harvest field for a maze of sudan grass stalks trodden— the moment you say, I haven't really been lost, as you step out of the obstacle, beyond the game you play with yourself: and there's the book come down off the shelf.  *** Mid-August I found out the publisher who was going to release my book didn't want to release it the way I wanted it. I suggested half a dozen ways to make the agreement work, but none suited the publisher; and anyway, their digital infrastructure--the pillar of their fledgling press--was not yet ready. We parted ways. As disappointed as I might be while still having food on the table, a loving family, a secure ho...

My hunger, love, is like an alien moon. I know you feel its phases subtly as tired nights pale from busy afternoons. The strange globe with its aching liquid pull— astronomical and inopportune— has stirred storm clouds lately, love. It grows full and stirs tides and winds into two hoarse cries. In here, we’ve battened down, sorted the mail. Do you remember the last time that eye closed in satisfied rest in the cocoon, turbulence muted under the duvet of earth’s shadow? Did you know sixty-two moons (nine of them provisional) fly by Saturn, not to mention the rings? And do you know how insistent my orbital gravity winds up? Even typhoons blow! You’re the sovereign sea, but I’m thirsty, too. This is my crazy calligraphic treatment of my own poem. I'm excited that this poem is recently or about to published by Flapperhouse .

My friends visit, and I feast, storing up memories, storing up memories for when they’re gone and I stand by the cupboard with my hands, with my hands talking over each other like they do when thoughts rupture so fast over my head. If forever were mine, I would be still as a painting and reach the exquisite end of wonder. Wonder why. Now my hands are recalling their American faces. I suppose we’re the same around the world—but being understood at last! Mother, I’ll return. Mother, I’ll return, but first I’m knitting this unforgettable, missing garment from the way my friends are no longer here. My hands knitting in the Sri Lankan sun, knitting what’s gone, knitting what’s not yet gone. *** This poem was published with the illustration by Ann Sheng in Wisdom Crieth Withou t, issue 10.