ComaFor every dead king there stands another and a child to tell how rooms grow small: the first spider remakes the same emptiness: the slow wait as flooding dissolves before anyone can save the strawberry finch in all this ash: a sigh in oaks: April where all goodness shows: your mother in the tears of La Llorona: you come to let me know you don't believe in thieves: wraiths revolving around the loon's cry: I cry harder into the dream that lingers: for the dead you determine: cancer: what are you after: hand-holding is for fear: no water runs through here: take cover: heat the stove for warmth: first days like Vietnam: palms made of chalk: you spare me then blow away: saying this is the way: wash up Khaty Xiong is from Fresno, CA. She received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Montana, where she was also the 2013 recipient of the Merriam-Frontier Award for her poetry chapbook Elegies. Her work has appeared in How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology, Kartika Review, Lantern Review, Alice Blue Review, and other publications. Currently, she resides in Dublin, OH. |