The two poems below appear as a part of a series featuring fellows in the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. Read Meg Kaizu’s essay about her relationship with language here.
Inflammation
The blood-warm wind blows:
Whistles of demons in our nest
Tide rises
With a faint silver moon
Waves collide
In the black water
We peck at and pull out each other’s feathers;
Echo & mirror one another
To find ourselves
In each other’s shadows
Stars’ carrions in the dark
Into the dead of night, I take flight.
In my absence
Words I engraved in your heart,
Line by line,
Drain in your veins
You keep looking out the window,
Await the pecking sound
Of my beak
At your windowpane.
The pain we hold onto, hovers inside
Till the wounds inflame.
I pin your feathers on my wall,
Write to remind you:
You don’t need my wings
To uncover your own beauty.
Silence separates & binds us;
Come and seize me
In the sun where stars fuse
I clasp your hand
In spring snow,
Frozen rain,
In the depth of solitude.
In wind
Feathers rise up
Fever knows no extremities,
Infects, penetrates, cures,
Remedies our maladies
Ghoul
Did you recognize me
That day?
Through the window
In the yellow sunlight
I watched you
When the sky was gray
With red and purple
At the edge
The wind turned pages
Quickly
Through the glass
A pretty distortion slipped
In the rain
Images multiplied
Endlessly
On its surface
Did you recognize me?
A picture hung on the wall
Thin and frail handwriting
In the mirror you turned
Slowly
I blended into the surroundings,
Hid among shadows
When the wind cooled down
The dust settled
Did you hear me in the rain?