By Action
By Wendy Xu
Thinking to see them there, captains
industrious in
morning sun, I crack the egg’s tender
yellow head
Love comes to me un-
repentant, toward it all vectors
converge repeating, like
moment of the necessary form
I pluck a feather from your neck
On the page one alights without permission, or
love is
an assemblage
beginning each day identical, palpable I
remarks of, is it that music or need edits
my body
two people leave a shopping mall
with goods, death squad hovering high
a streetlamp
Call your mother, stay up late
to watch the neighborhood
undressing light, like
multiple phone calls
connected then
hung up, get the family together soon, watch
American bison overtake the field
filling a vehicle lane in early snow
obstructed I paused
To see it, their dark furs shaking enormous
out of trees they descended from the line of sky
respond to a much deeper instinct
we were then back on our way
input later to the search bar
I love keywords, like
love is
an exodus
I imagine you sleeping, then a pyramid or
chandelier throwing sunlight
An absence emerges, sharp
I regard the whole
practice of it
touch it
Copyright Credit: Wendy Xu, "By Action" from Phrasis. Copyright © 2017 by Wendy Xu. Reprinted by permission of the author.