I want to cloud a cloud to water water
to make something that already is something more
I mean most days I feel like
a chalk drawing of the sun
like a small attempt at an improbable thing
Don’t worry
This poem is not an act of war
although I must confess to get here
I had to walk through a cloud and dissolve
*
The things I want to run from
keep coming back to me
All the while the things I want to run to
keep lengthening like the shadows of grief
I want to believe in a religion of arms
holding me through my unscrambling
*
The trees are shedding now
It makes me think of what you’re supposed to do
when your ship is sinking and you have a suitcase full
of silver on board
If you zoom out far enough
I could be a small cloud of dust
a loose leaf flung from a breathless tree
I want the touchstone
of being loved always
*
I am thinking
of losing my limbs for the winter
All the while you are a slick shape
paddling softly to shore
Where are you going?
What is the meaning of war?
Who are we one river away from
becoming?
Shuang Ang was born and raised in Singapore. Her work has been published by the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop, the Rumpus, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. She was a Breakout 8 Writers Prize Winner, and a runner-up in the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize. Shuang is currently an MFA student at Sarah Lawrence College, where she is working on her debut collection.