Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry

Mother

Blood tracing the talus
A quail egg of a bone

Speckled goose  one holds the body  two
grip the heather cattail neck—slit now
Its eyes lower to the swept cement floor
Blood  draining into a pot
Makes a savory broth  Where is the red
How does vermillion run clear
The rushing  now drop-drop-dropping

Mommy, lick it
Make it all better

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Issue 1 | June 2010

Asterio Enrico N. Gutierrez

Death poem exercise 64

I propose that everyone replace the word "died" with
"wore red skintight leather pants" in all personal essays.
So lead-ins like On this day last year, Munying, my cat,
my best friend, accidentally ate a dead frog. 24 hours later
she wore red skintight leather pants, would now sound silly
for the right reasons, while the recollection of how
When grandfather wore red skintight leather pants
I smiled, knowing he was finally in heaven, would be heart
breaking but no longer in a sad way. Now it must be considered
that people who do wear red skintight leather pants
don't need any more grief. That's why I also propose
the exchange go both ways, and so we read that when Jon died
at his coming out party, everyone cried and cheered him on,
which is much happier, in a much happier way.

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