I slip into lamb’s ear,
Velvet all that I am,

Lung and vein,
Wake open completely

In shell and cotton roots.
These carnelian woods

Clutch me into creature,
My eyelids into armor.

Only there is snow
To tell me why I am here.

I bookend the eventide
With a noctilucent cloud,

A silhouette cradling the era
Of my body’s night.

Now firethorn in the garden
Is audience to the winter day,

Listening to the wings
Of a bird for weather,

And this moss, all over, swelling
The chamber of your tomb.

Mai Der Vang

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