I used to believe you are far away.
Mystical. Scary.
There is always a faint cry
in the sweep of wind, somewhere.
Rising. Passing.
Is it you sending deceased ones
into dreams as messengers?
I stroll along the lake, see a tombstone
of a man dead at age twenty-eight.
Carved on the stone, his smiling face, eternal,
a semiconductor circuit and a poem—
The happiness you brought.
The maple buds break ground.
Each seedling has three leaves,
translucent green under the setting sun.
A tenderness arises.
Let me be gentle with you first,
I smile with you, death.
Find the most happy photo of mine,
pick a poem I wrote. Release you.
Let you be, a life’s companion.
My blood surges hard.
The fascia, tendon, helplessly enmeshed.
How many cells struggle each moment
squeezing for enough space? The body
accumulates, accumulates
and accumulates you.
On the slope, cherry
blossoms fall, spring snow.
Dashes of sweetness flow.
Xiaoly Li is a 2022 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant in Poetry. Her poetry collection Every Single Bird Rising (previously called Across the Pacific) was a finalist for the Zone 3 Press Book Award and a semi-finalist for the Trio House Press Book Award and the 2022 Laura Boss Poetry Foundation Narrative Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in Spillway, American Journal of Poetry, PANK, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, Rhino, Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, and elsewhere; her work has been featured on Verse Daily and in several anthologies. Li has been nominated for Best of the Net three times, Best New Poets, and Pushcart Prize two times. She lives in Massachusetts.
Image: “Wet Snow in Pine Hills” by Nicole Monroe
Pine Hills Review 