Water Grave by Mai Der Vang

Water Grave

We cross under

the midnight shield

and learn that bullets

can curse the air.

A symposium

of endangered stars

evicts itself to

the water. Another

convoy leaves the kiln.

The crowded dead

turn into the earth’s

unfolded bed sheet.

We drift near banks,

creatures of the Mekong,

heads bobbing like

ghosts without bodies,

toward the farthest shore.

With every treading

soak, the wading leg,

we beg ourselves to live,

to float the mortared

cartilage and burial

tissue in this river yard

of amputated hearts.