August 22, 2023 - Ellen Zhang’s “Semaphore”

Somewhere in messy transcendent world, 

there is evenness of spilling grains to

tilled soil with satisfaction of knowing.

Ah, usage of future tense… 

What about unpredictability amid

hope makes you think of connection flights,

swaying of bird cage doors amid

burning houses? Don’t you ever feel 

like a bird trapped in the airport? Someone

reads aloud alone in crowded rooms. Nobody 

flutters which is to say: the way

I cry out to you in cold sea, deep forest, dark 

fires, final hour you will not come -

I will look for you still. Distance - 

like love - changes nothing, really, 

when you say it enough times, every time

we use it there is 

drifting. Consider roots,

sink into moistness.

We never write about 

anything we can get to the

bottom:

anticipating, verge of fragility. Who can say 

how we got here? What can grow? 

Semaphores so steady, pulling

through my body, leaving me 

with shafts of yellow

tracements.

Does the air rise still?