How Love Talks

By Shiyang Su

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To night
I do not question 
its warm reticence 
against a flint 
or its privation
a river
without unfoldings
dark and cool, without
scoopings of the moon 
a copious body 
coming down 
like an empire
on which 
I fold a paper boat  
carry it over
the coppery lines
of the black earth 
and believe in 
a certain narrative 
by a certain other 
for whom
I keep the tributary 
of language: digressive, 
small-scale, defiant
as a fish 
against the keel
splashing 
with an armor 
worn old 

Shiyang Su is a Chinese poet. These poems are excerpts from her in-progress collection concerning the struggle, agony, and loss in recent years, intensified by COVID and frequent social and political upheavals. Her other poems can be found or are forthcoming in San Pedro River Review, Blue Marble Review, Unbroken, Rattle, Passages North, and others. She was nominated for Best New Poets.

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