Love to the allegory
nursing among the nettles
the end as I dream it
lucent in the bower
Might I bow before
my father bowing
before his darkness
my heart a foam of iron
my hand for the time being
a rising peony
Might I seek every rapeseed
in search of you
neither rain nor kab ntsig
The world
in first translations
I would have beaten my back
a thousand years
had it not been for the bird
who loved my back
for the ghost who crooned
its way into the mouth
of a bird that called me
daughter daughter
daughter
& I learned to love the noise
these songs of devotion
clear as a garden for the field mouse
mortared & pestled into soup
my anger slain & whetted
for the promise of more song
Then in a dream came
a mighty ox tall & ailing
as the sky his head in a pool
of flies kneeling before me
& upon reaching to kiss
his wide brown face his horns
fell off into shadow where
he cried out my many names
& the names of others
crying to forget our meeting
for every future sighting
So I forgave the medley
of his stars
forgave the currents
of our paths
My goodness even now
the moon in quarrel
with her own complexion
her tears in a storm
of myrtles
my heart nesting just bones higher
than the last open fire
sent out to return us
Happy for this moment
these summons of the night
Might I forage
a moment longer
then fold
in all that gloom
a grub
perpetually
eating towards
that umbral love
Song of the Dark Times
Khaty Xiong is the daughter of Hmong refugees from Laos. She is the author of Poor Anima (Apogee Press,
2015) and three poetry chapbooks: Ode to the Far Shore (Platypus Press, 2016), Deer Hour (New Michigan Press,2014), and Elegies (University of Montana, 2013). A MacDowell Colony fellow and a recipient of the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award, her work has been published in POETRY, The New York Times, How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology and elsewhere.