Yellow Star-Thistle

Jane Wong

Sitting in darkness keeps me kind,

keeps me topsoil. If I had a ladder in my hair,

I would save all those people falling out of buildings.

The news does not lie about the falling.

It turns out that there is no need to flail your arms.

And who can question such conviction?

Yellow star-thistle constellates in a field.

It takes a horse down.

It takes the sky down, an eye

out. Thistle, replace my lungs for stone.

Replace a lake for consequence, for aren’t we kind enough?

Avalanche, get a little warmer.

Jane Wong received her M.F.A. from the University of Iowa and is a former U.S. Fulbright Fellow. She is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Poems appear recently or are forthcoming in CutBank, EOAGH, Mid-American Review, Barrow Street, Octopus, The Journal, and OH NO. She lives in Seattle.

“When I lived in Missoula, my roommate Chad would bring back elk skulls and leave them out on our front porch. No one messed with our house.”