Triptych for Three-Part Mixed Chorus
BY VANESSA Y. NIU
i.
I want to start out
beautiful
when I’d woven myself
from the dirt and clay
before the cracks,
Shining
then, thinking God
could be ours and
That possession
exhaled
through the story of
belonging and
beginning, our minor
blues and bloods
blooming like
The pages of history
to be rewritten.
I want to start out
beautiful
when I’d woven myself
from the dirt and clay
before the cracks,
Shining
then, thinking God
could be ours and
That possession
exhaled
through the story of
belonging and
beginning, our minor
blues and bloods
blooming like
The pages of history
to be rewritten.
ii.
With the part with my hands
thin and pale lines like silk paints
like an ancient tapestry into
play-pretend pots. We’d be adults
soon, baked from
shadows escaping the sun.
That we’d make it one day,
proud, breathing like there
was a universe in ourselves.
With us,
our blood, rippling
dispossession in every
key. We, the minor players,
in order to survive. In the
spring and salt
opening like a mother
we open to the dry earth
With the part with my hands
thin and pale lines like silk paints
like an ancient tapestry into
play-pretend pots. We’d be adults
soon, baked from
shadows escaping the sun.
That we’d make it one day,
proud, breathing like there
was a universe in ourselves.
With us,
our blood, rippling
dispossession in every
key. We, the minor players,
in order to survive. In the
spring and salt
opening like a mother
we open to the dry earth
iii.
On your back scratching
when life wasn’t so dogged,
you and the steam rose
together. The future rose
out underneath us.
We knew, even mud-caked,
yes us, the sun’s yolk
was noise yet to be made.
We inhaled and the world
revealed itself
in the pages of each
language, a
forgiving and forgetting
womb, creation myth
, a faulty bomb.
Open for us again
and stay open for a while.
On your back scratching
when life wasn’t so dogged,
you and the steam rose
together. The future rose
out underneath us.
We knew, even mud-caked,
yes us, the sun’s yolk
was noise yet to be made.
We inhaled and the world
revealed itself
in the pages of each
language, a
forgiving and forgetting
womb, creation myth
, a faulty bomb.
Open for us again
and stay open for a while.
