Nina Mingya Powles, MAGNOLIA 木蘭, Seraph Press, 2020

NIna reads ‘Faraway love’ from MAGNOLIA 木蘭

鸣 (míng), the cry of animals and insects, rhymes with tooth, which rhymes with precipice, which rhymes with the first part of my Chinese name.

I am full of nouns and verbs; I don’t know how to live any other way. I am a tooth-like thing. I am half sun half moon, and the scissors used to cut away the steamed lotus leaves. I am honey strokes spreading over the tiles.

Certain languages contain more kinds of rain than others, and I have eaten them all.

 

from ‘Fieldnotes on a downpour’

 

Review on Poetry Shelf here

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