k h a t y x i o n g

k h a t y x i o n g

NOTES
	1. The direct expression for "go" is a flat palm. People do this to avoid falling. I trade hemispheres, hope for the middle (there is no middle). Things go missing and a language goes. Wet rock, osprey, pinecone. It is somewhere in the words. You'll go wait for honey, a chicken's neck, the same refrain. We'll write each other oil notes, navigate the salmon's gape, wait for the signal. 2. We play Indian and Indian, because you say, we are lost Indians from the mountains. Nevermind how to fear the sacred, it's the flesh we must worry about. Only we can strike each other down, beat the living prayers out of our heads. Only we can take us apart. Even after pain, no one is responsible. You came back to tell me yourself. 3. Mother is alive again and we are unafraid. I palm my throat to keep her from spilling. The knife cannot cut, it could not the first time. How can she break now?
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UNTITLED
	Dear Mother, & nbsp; the ear has listened; &n bsp; be still-- rinse out, &nb sp; say the path is ruined. &nbs p; In death, we do not know-- &nbsp ; form the private sound & nbsp; the human bird transient &n bsp; empty in iron. <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> <b r> & nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; The bird &nbs p; a resilient shape, bent in surrender, &nbsp ; & nbsp; a design to the nature &n bsp; &nb sp; &nbs p; of remains. The things &nbsp ; named or in question & nbsp; &n bsp; fixing the word, a reset &nb sp; &nbs p; &nbsp ; in broken bones, gems, a mechanical device (again, differently)-- & nbsp; This time a depression, etc. I hand over &n bsp; &nb sp; my species because we do not migrate, &nbs p; &nbsp ; & nbsp; it is complicated--they are always after it. &n bsp; My shape resumes to a former me, narrow &nb sp; &nbs p; in a process that repeats. &nbsp ; & nbsp; &n bsp; The recession of the sea &nb sp; makes a scene for time and peace, &nbs p; &nbsp ; the <i>this</i> becomes <i>these</i>. & nbsp; &n bsp; &nb sp; Such are human affairs unseen, &nbs p; the most familiar type of crises, freezing point-- &nbsp ; & nbsp; a book for spreading.
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SPOKANE
	this city's itinerary swells belly first as the smiling man who grins long enough for me to see his blackened teeth & I pay him in smiles while above six stories high a woman stretches a ghost out her window waiving a handholding goodbye in this warm city a black cat on the ledge yawning its body ready for the next life an old ritual for those who have seen a bus roaring by my face against other faces for good measure the same festival held last year when we slept through the day because we forgot to eat thinking hunger could teach us our frame & I haven't considered it the same since the river dive that killed Hera the fall being world's apart until you bit through traffic saying how much you hated city drivers their sprawl unforgiving from hip to shoulder their city their body like they have always known the way to move without permission whenever possible the favor being among teething walls & alleyways cats love this kind of city best for the dinners in our back pockets & whispers gentle in litter even through this hunger stinking up the car that doesn’t leave because we left that deer head in the water last week rising and falling while fishermen must think it can't be helped today or today it may be useful to wait another day
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KHATY XIONG is from Fresno, California. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Montana (2013). She is also the recipient of the University of Montana’s Merriam-Frontier Award of 2013 for her chapbook Elegies. Her work has appeared in Spires, Polaris, How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology, Kartika Review, and Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry.

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