The heart

Victoria Chang

Someone trimmed the tree.

Maybe there are no answers.

Small bits of blue sky through it.

Garden

Victoria Chang

Something is growing.

Plath said growing hurts at first,

but when does the hurting stop?

My fingerprints are

all rubbed down from touching time.

- Victoria Chang

The shipwreck

Victoria Chang

I sit at my desk.

Desire is an anchor—

I lift it and words come up.

There are no words here, just rain

on the nape of everything.

- Victoria Chang

Séance

AR

Someone calls for me.

It's myself.

It's terrifying to realize this—

The one who calls

is the one alive.

What can we call it

Victoria Chang

You can’t stop someone

from adding an s to a

word. Loves. Depressions.

Deaths. Griefs. Gods. Most of the time,

the plural of something is worse.

History is dead.

Apricots grieve their old shape.

A dry flower can’t reverse.

Some call this dying.

Those of us who live in it

know it is closer to love.

- Victoria Chang

I write a word and

attach it to a speaker—

someone please listen.

- Victoria Chang

I’m left behind, waiting for

the birds to return.

They’ve moved on. I now know that

being birdless doesn’t hurt.

- Victoria Chang

Is silence a gift?

I can’t hear my bones shrinking,

- Victoria Chang

The past is never finished,

the future is scared.

- Victoria Chang

Avoiding news by the river

Victoria Chang

All the announcements.

The mayflies land on a leaf.

No one there ever looks up.

The flight

Victoria Chang

I no longer watch

the birds during the day. I

prefer to save them

for my dreams where an owl’s face

has more than one expression.

Youth stretches over

everything, can be used once.

Then we turn it inside out.

- Victoria Chang