Three Poems
Xiaoly Li
Walking the DogBar Breakwater at Gloucester Harbor
Against the blue sky, the red roof, the East Point Lighthouse behind us,
the sun slips down minute by minute; on one side the quiet seaport
anchored with boats, on the other, open ocean; huge waves
strike on granite, endless waterfalls, mists on our faces &
clothes, wind & spindrift stumble us, pull us to fear's deep end
as if in waves of wild flames: sad life, lost love, wars;
water flows from threatening death roar through the jetty
opening to sunlight reflecting in the water, many folds;
this narrow path separates, embraces beautiful & feral, each droplet
a faceted self; the young couple with children fish,
laugh on the peaceful side, not bothered by open water;
I’ve gone through that stage, no turning back, I've seen the
stone wall next to the shore with names of the drowned, I behold both
tranquil & turmoil, strive to move my heart along; he holds my hand tighter.
The Blue Rabbit Stamp in the Year of Black Rabbit
Your human-like hands hold
a writing brush,
a postal card.
Are you listing the names of
unnumbered dead?
No mist in your red-moon eyes
burning the mystery
of this winter land.
Are you laughing?
Or are you sneering?
Not the Jade Bunny
flying with Chang’e
to the moon to pound
the mortar for elixir.
Your sun-lit scarlet mouth
wide open. Two bare front teeth.
Are you saying, be watchful?
Are you saying, be hopeful?
Are you a spirit
of our restless yearning?
Are you brushing a magic wand
to transmute the darkness, before
your blue exit to the Moon Palace?
In the Great Darkness, December 2022
In the silence, my Popo showed
no signs of pain, took shape for the final time.
A solitary journey,
across the last step,
into the great darkness of space.
The earth, the moon, a few shiny jewels.
If not for gravity,
how will stars support themselves?
If not for love,
how will each of us live?
Mosaic green agate,
she is in the urn.
Waiting, waiting to cross the Pacific
to be with him, my Gonggong, in the motherland.
Hometown, lost in darkness.
Free to be an unanchored kite.
I kneel for my father, for yours, his and hers,
so many fathers and mothers.
May our longing keep life going.
Xiaoly Li is a 2022 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant in Poetry. Her poetry collection Every Single Bird Rising is forthcoming with FutureCycle Press (2023). Her poetry has appeared in Spillway, American Journal of Poetry, PANK, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, Rhino, and elsewhere.