Xiaoly Li
Two Poems
The Voice of Air
We are pigeons
flying olive branches
to our mothers—
boxes and boxes—
building a great wall
of tender hearts
to reduce wind’s ravages.
We are bees
seeking flowers
bringing sweetness
where most needed—
the care-givers and
the care-given.
When this frozen wind
sweeps from East to West,
we have to fight two fights.
“Traitors,” some brothers say from afar.
“You, virus,” a few brothers point fingers here.
The double swords split the sky and ocean
rendered by the bleeding sun.
Spring Still Comes in Spite of April 2020
The minutes grow to be ready—
the first cut of chives of spring.
I drop lemon into the chive dumplings—
wow, explosive taste of spring.
Frank and Violet run back and forth
next to one neighbor’s fence—bark no more,
they just come to say hello.
Across the street at a birthday party,
everyone sits 6 feet apart.
Kids cheer and wave from a honking car,
stand in the sky window, and drop a giant
teddy bear beside bright yellow forsythia.
Air is so translucent after days of rain,
influx of magnolia, peach flower and
rhododendron—the universe is breathing me.
A grosbeak on top of the snowy weeping cherry,
picks and drops flowers—throwing stars.
Oh, I want to catch those stars bloomed fresh.
—Submitted on 10/24/2020 to the erstwhile What Rough Beast series
Xiaoly Li‘s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, American Journal of Poetry, PANK, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, and other journals. She holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., and a masters in computer science and engineering from Tsinghua University in China. A fiction writer and photographer as well as a poet, Li works as a computer engineer and lives in Massachusetts.
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