Demolition Day
I saw a crane lift a train. It took the wheels
in its teeth and shook it like a rug.
Truth be told, my failure has been causing me
a lot of grief lately. Just yesterday, a man
bumped into me on purpose. He said,
I’m sorry, did I bump into you?
Conversation is the beginning of all disaster.
How I wish I had a haystack to disappear into then,
a whole hill slumped before me. My legs over
the precipice, becoming a plant to crawl upon.
Or a ring of water at the bottom of a vase,
expanding infinitely—a monsterhead
of lilac perfume. I grow lonelier by the day,
the day lowers in another part of town,
in train cars converted into restaurants,
clinking through the empty night.
Nocere
I wore the dawn
around my neck.
Was the whole day
a waste? To yawn,
I poured a pitcher
into the wind.
For clarity, for grace.
I heard the wind
turn its head, into
a car hitting a tree
without palms.
I faced the highway,
nocere, lazily
punching the sky.
Jane Wong is the author of Overpour (Action Books, 2016). Her poems have appeared in places such as Best American Poetry 2015, Best New Poets 2012, Pleiades, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Volta, and others. She is a Kundiman Fellow and has received fellowships and scholarships from the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center.
