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Maw Shein Win in Response to MK Chavez

a still-death tableaux / of heavenly radiation

​animalia

draw the tigers into the bloom room
 
the riddle is this:  if the shadows of bright
daggers fall on the tongues of children,
do we call the tiger home?
 
they are not safe today,
the prickly pear of chalk angels
appear in the dream box
 
they draw the tigers
into bloom’s room
track star blisters
 
& the liquid sinks
 
look into our yellow eyes with love
 

fish with teeth
​

there is a canal at the end
of the road      we walk towards it
 
a year has passed
there is nothing to say
 
a body floats in the canal  
green water, fish with teeth
 
vines that grow from cellars of flesh
 
the body is a plant
cut from its root, blue as a star

​

questions-in-progress
​

did you see the lost dogs?
 
what about the cattails?
 
does durability really matter?
 
where is the middle ground?
 
does he cry in the tunnel?
 
is she a logicophobist?
 
when do the pelicans leave?
 
how does the soap stack up?
 
can a clock run backwards?
 
what does noetic mean?
 
 
did you watch her swim away?

 
 

The Unexpected Visit
(on a painting by Remedios Varo)
 

i.
 
shades of bone and shale
a mummified bobcat
 
a woman covered with hair
waits at the table
 
two place settings
without bread or fruit
 
the blotted windows, or
the arm through the drapes
 
a still-death tableaux
of heavenly radiation
 
 
 
ii.
 
pay attention:
these trees are winter trees
this bobcat is here
those shadows are invisible
this hand is held
the woman is waiting
these plates are empty
the visitor is unexpected
 
 
 
iii.
 
should a visitor come
how would he arrive
through the shuttered window
in the blue-black of night
through the octagonal
brick-layered hole in the floor
 
will he arrive alone
 
will he come with a cat
 
or, will he emerge
 
from the trees
 
in a blister of stars


skin of oxygen

​*
table of lamps
bladder of needlessness
a cricket to green peas
grafting time onto sweet cheeks
 
*
stung garlic
the sound of samantha
how flesh moves away from the bones
the cornstalks and the starlings
 
*
loveless amphetamine  echoing
a breathless angina  redoubling
a tooth in the field
a hand in the lake
 
*
abbreviate the thought!
incriminate the loved ones!
the potions posed
on the table like that
 
*
when she talked
it was like the rippling of bookcases
i mean the semblance of birds
on the precipice of a cliff
near the ocean
buzzing of bees
heard from a clearing away
 
far away in the forest

​

​
Maw Shein Win’s writing has appeared in various journals including Cimarron Review, Ping-Pong, Eleven Eleven, vitriol, and most recently in the anthology Cross-Strokes: Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions). She is a poetry editor for Rivet and a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto.

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Email

aspasiology@gmail.com
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