Yellow Crane Aubade
Quang Vo
"Em đi như cánh hạc vàng,
Ngàn măm mây trắng ngỡ ngàng còn trôi"
Nguyễn Hiền
To J.
This is how you walk: with a freshet of
hair over your shoulders. Late August,
and you haunt me like a yellow crane,
riding a river of sunlight—
like the tracks of tiny sugar ants
dissolved in a morning cup of dew.
And even my fingers, silkworms tangled
to the path you took, trace your dusty steps.
Twenty is a beautiful age for you,
your mother’s cherished year back to visit her.
Your brother’s ambitions turned
into stratus clouds where a flock of cranes
have carried your father. I ask him,
Can you see your daughter?
He responds, coldly—absence.
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