TORSO OF AIR
Suppose you do change your life.
& the body is more than
a portion of night—sealed
with bruises. Suppose you woke
& found your shadow replaced
by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful
and gone. So you take the knife to the wall
instead. You carve & carve.
Until a coin of light appears
& you get to look in, for once,
on happiness. The eye
staring back from the other side—
waiting.
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OCEAN VUONG is the author of two chapbooks: NO (YesYes Books, 2013) and BURNINGS (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010), which was an American Library Association’s Over The Rainbow selection. A recipient of a 2014 Pushcart Prize, other honors include fellowships from Kundiman, Poets House, and the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, as well as the 2012 Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets and an Academy of American Poets Prize. Poems appear in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Quarterly West, Denver Quarterly, Guernica, Poetry Northwest, and The Normal School, amongst others. He lives in Queens, NY.
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Read more by Ocean Vuong:
Poem in Guernica
We sit and watch the chickadees in the feeder, /
drinking hot tea, a celebration of security /
with dusk’s familiar arrival.
these clouds, some /
so light I can see the sky’s //
ridiculous boundary
they don’t rise or fall. they’re framed /
on the walls. driftless syllables ornamental /
and motionless.
After I dropped her off, I lit a cigarette and blasted shit that could most generously be described as coffeehouse punk on my way out of the suburbs. I love people, but I’m also a little relieved when they go.
we are the dumpster fire we encircle to warm our greedy hands in the dark
Every fart, /
burp and feces, the body’s /
speech. What a triumph /
to royal your own musk.
I haven’t been writing really but I’ve been /
thinking about the words, “Palm Rose.”
If they would stay just where they are all morning, /
they’d be the monument to the history they’re looking for.
Rain falls on the wedding /
a hole in the church is suspected /
and the blessing jumps crazily /
from umbrella to umbrella
“You will crush our enemies or I will crush you,” the voice commanded. “These are my neighbors,” I said. “I don’t get along with most of them, but I wouldn’t want to crush them.” “It’s them or you,” the voice said.
