WANDERERS OF THE WOLD
︎︎︎ Vi Khi Nao
︎ May 4, 2023
They were clear millponds under these gigantic spectacular oaks that swayed with dusk and water
Time inaugurates memory, in which they perceive yet again that obliterated rhythm is more narrative but less chronic
Without mobility, a curse is often seen as a rapist with consciousness
We don’t see our anguishes as our selves
Diaphanous at birth, the mirror’s influence on us is fiercest
There was something mislaid in our reflections.
All seven of us experience in unison:
Bone famine
Flesh shortage
Blood impoverishment
Skin translucency
We form our semi-circular persuasions
Aware of our worthlessness
We sob uncontrollably from one dimension
From one wormhole to the next
Our movements trivial and tall
As creatures of futility
We voyage through the world like corrosive arcs of slayed indulgence
Our soulless spirits tied to our shapes as
Our departure & demise find their forgiveness in a white pomegranate’s rebirth.
Time inaugurates memory, in which they perceive yet again that obliterated rhythm is more narrative but less chronic
Without mobility, a curse is often seen as a rapist with consciousness
We don’t see our anguishes as our selves
Diaphanous at birth, the mirror’s influence on us is fiercest
There was something mislaid in our reflections.
All seven of us experience in unison:
Bone famine
Flesh shortage
Blood impoverishment
Skin translucency
We form our semi-circular persuasions
Aware of our worthlessness
We sob uncontrollably from one dimension
From one wormhole to the next
Our movements trivial and tall
As creatures of futility
We voyage through the world like corrosive arcs of slayed indulgence
Our soulless spirits tied to our shapes as
Our departure & demise find their forgiveness in a white pomegranate’s rebirth.
Vi Khi Nao is the author of seven poetry collections, the short stories collection, A Brief Alphabet of Torture, and the novel, Swimming with Dead Stars. Her poetry collection, The Old Philosopher, won the Nightboat Books Prize for Poetry in 2014. Her book Suicide: the Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche is out of 11:11 in Spring 2023.
Read her in Issue 1.