The thin shirtless
man fishing by
the river. The woman
by his side, smoking.
Two children. One
looked at me sadly.
The other with a seed
of hate. Where was
the swan then? Still down-
river in the turbulent part.
What am I to do
with these people by
the same river,
their eyes that followed
me like a
hairline crack.
My friend who called me
last night to tell me
about the mean neighbors
who look at her
with disgust.
My neighbor
who looks
at me with
disgust.
All the people who
don’t know
about the swan swirling
in the rough river.
All the men who
abused me who are now
married with children. Even
the cruelest one,
who had a scar
from his neck to his pelvis,
because his heart was
too simple and
had to be moved.
They couldn’t find a
human heart,
so they
inserted a
bee swarm.
The other man who
called me
into his office,
who yelled at me
while he
pulled out his
eyelashes so that
each night
his desk looked
like a field of wheat.
Even then, I knew
trees had
hearts.
I filled all the rectangles
in the spreadsheet
with trees.
At the end
of the year, I had
4,223 trees.
But no tree line.
So I quit
my job.
In the distance,
the bridge I have just
walked across. The same
bridge the swan
just passed under. Or
maybe the swan just
passed over my head.
How the swan in
the sky is the savior but
in the river becomes
something to save.
How in this
country, my body
is ripped from the
sunlight.
How in a different land,
my body is studied by
bird scholars.
There are so
many things
hatred has nothing
to do with: the bridge,
the bell in the
distance, night.
There’s a theory
that hate is closely
related
to love.
That hate
is the imitation of love.
Another theory that
love is
the opposite of
depression. Then maybe
the worst job in the
world is to be a poet.
Because every poet
is trying to be loved
by the future.
Because every poem is
trying to be
a love poem.