Anna Maria Hong

I, Let

From captor to native and cradle to eve,

                        waking and waving ourselves, our sleeves

in the cosmic breeze that ships us

                        to shape. O! harness, O! dumb dorsal purpose—

 

bluesmocking Alice alone in her palace, which happens

                        to be a hole—to be is to drop & grab

the bottle off the shelf to have something

                        to peruse along the fall. O! All the world’s a stage

 

in dishevelment. We bust each increment

                        to the best of our implement, to be fit is to be

part of the service of render of temper

                        of hull of fin

 

O! Lark

           O! Manna      O! Roll

 

Anna Maria Hong

Anna Maria Hong is the 2013-14 Visiting Creative Writer at Ursinus College and was the 2010-11 Bunting Fellow in Poetry at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her poems are recently published and forthcoming in publications including Boston Review, Green Mountains Review, Fence, Fairy Tale Review, Unsplendid, Beloit Poetry Journal, Southwest Review, Mandorla, POOL, The Best American Poetry, and Poetry. She has received residencies from Yaddo, Djerassi, and Valparaiso and teaches poetry writing at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.