
You Are Not Dead by Wendy Xu

selections from You Are Not Dead by Wendy Xu
It’s Almost My Birthday Don’t Tell Anyone
I go to sleep and wake up
different. You make a lengthy
drive across Iowa to find
the other end of Iowa, its fields
hung silent in iron sky. Claims
are always being made
about precision. If I were a bird
I would mean to be
the small kind. What is going on
in that room where
no one lives? It might fill
itself with delicate things,
some very nice iron bowls,
twelve miniature trees, all
of them aflame. How
many times did they tell you
you’d never make it? One day
is never longer than
the next, untangling film
from a canister. Somebody
means to measure you
by needle and light.
I take a quiet kind
of panic to the river.
Requirements for Seeing a Valley
You must be at least this tall. You must
not care that you are not. You need a friend who
is a plant scientist to point out all
the trees. This is a walking tour. Where
are your shoes? This is because airplanes will not
make stops in Ohio and I put that somewhere
in my letters. You must think that light watches
over you when everyone else
is talking. I put some sand in a jar and wait
for it to mean. Some horses wade into
the dangerous ocean because what else
is more important to see? Hold on, I promise
it’s happening. You and me are something
like a forest.
And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So
Today there has been so much talk of things exploding
into other things, so much that we will become curious, that we
all run outside into the hot streets
and hug. Romance is a grotto of eager stones
anticipating light, or a girl whose teeth
you can always see. With more sparkle and pop
is the only way to live. Your confetti tongue explodes
into acid jazz. Small typewriters
that other people keep in their eyes
click away at all our farewell parties. It is hard
to pack for the rest of your life. Someone is always
eating cold cucumber noodles. Someone will drop by later
to help dismantle furniture. A lot can go wrong
if you sleep or think, but the trees go on waving
their broken little hands.
You Are Not Dead by Wendy Xu is now available from Cleveland State University Poetry Center.
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