by Marco Yan
The name of a plant is not the plant, but the alliteration enlivens it.
Pendent on a piece of wood, whorls of succulent stems branch out,
each green and bulbous as a beer bottle, which begets a new bottle,
until there is, at the tip, a bright yellow bud poised to bloom.
Native to eastern Brazil, this epiphyte, unlike me, will not stop moving—
the flowers burst like trumpets, blow sunward, and droop by dusk,
then casually some loose their husks onto the ledge.
Again, I find myself between two best possible things, the indeterminate almost.
I’m supposed to mist the roots, give nitrates, and be patient with my head,
but in the stuporous light of 6 p.m. I follow the plant’s limbs,
which stir and stretch and graft themselves on the shadows
they cast on a white wall, as substance encroaches absence,
as an unassuageable thirst—for what?—slips out, a tongue
laid restless on another tongue, then another tongue.
Marco Yan is a Hong Kong-based poet, whose works have appeared in Voice & Verse, Guernica, Epiphany, among other places. He earned his MFA from New York University. He can be found at www.marcoyan.com
A-minor 