Fresh Off the Boat | An Iconography
Su Hwang
i.
Tongue unfurls in ruins, low
& guarded as if each syllable unsheathes
a fresh wound. Severed: foreign bodies
clutch foreign limbs. No place
for proper burials, only
tacit uprisings.
ii.
Wander through deluge / shield / from
gusts of windsong / shingled eaves
rise / dreams are
not yours to be / shared
legacy of no/bodies
iii.
Heft hems craving, atrophies
into opal bone fields where
spring’s bounty bursts unshut
to expose new realms.
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home
There’s no one place
Unmoored: tears glint
like oceans among the weeds.
In winter, sleet melds into
mammoth banks sighing loss.
iv.
Accused of siphoning honey from the hive, blood thickens then winds along ravines where tubers are exposed to a certain density. Woe spills into ceramic pots already splintered & mended, balanced gingerly on the heads of ancient women climbing steps carved along the lip of steely mountains.
v.
Family trees reduced
to oral
traditions, cauterized dead
ends of dendrite filigree:
personalities
of myth, disintegrating
like vapor, apparitions
that whisper: Don’t you dare
forget
me. Don’t forget.
vi.
Wilderness: oh how
it bewilders! Head west
toward the wilting
sun –– cardinal
vanishing point.
In darkness,
children morph
into beasts rabid
from diets of artificial
commodities. Trade origin
for sugar: they forget
their given names.
vii.
Ballet of looped
(y)earnings: mirrored
Wall: begin
& end: end
& begin: begin & end:
&&&
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