FREE VERSE POEM
MAGGIE YANG
CARTOGRAPHY
My mother lectures me about poetry
though she can't even spell it.
When I chiseled metaphors into papers as a child
she recited Li Bai
一旦被连根拔起，风滚草就会永远旅
Once it has been uprooted, the tumbleweed travels forever.
She watches as I fill the daily crossword when the only cross she knows
is the one Jesus died on.
I get another email from the New York Times
one more artist has died
as the world begins burning in the snow.
The moon claimed by all of us
buries its expression in the clouds.
I act as a translator for my family when we travel.
Anywhere beyond
my parents' country, they become homeless (adjective)
because home is the language they speak. Because
what is the difference between dying and living
when both synchronize as family?
Their eyes glaze over a monotonous wash of concrete
skyscrapers, roads, alleys where there is no answer
to the question I am trying to ask: does the tumbleweed
travel forever, or does it just flatten?
I fold my hands and pray for the other face of the moon
to peel off my skin
and replace my eyes.
Maggie Yang is a writer and artist from Vancouver, Canada. Her poetry has been recognized by the Poetry Society, The League of Canadian Poets, and Poetry in Voice, and appears or is forthcoming in Subnivean, Eunoia Review, F(r)iction Lit, among others. Her art appears in The Adroit Journal. An interdisciplinary artist, she is particularly intrigued by the intersections of the written word with the visual and performing arts.
