"South in Hundreds" by Ching-In Chen

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day January 6, 2020   South in Hundreds   Ching-In Chen

Missing one hundred.   for many leagues, i slept under surface. couldn't learn enough to stay, couldn't hurt along midriff, scrum and scrub. see myself rushing into tomorrow's wet world. thin trees almost ferns with quiet mouth desire. took to cold high plain, only wind and a murdered boy.   started running at the first sign of breath but there's only three yesterday heads speak in these fields. so much to circle. always asking to let me repair small chord between us. you started lagging each step, dragging the water, stirring up dirt. he still refuses all nourishment, says everything bad.   an odd man rushes past, asking if near swamp, still looking for signs we've seen two girls on horseback. not tired, he says, refusing to go to sleep. we've seen very little all day, close to the whistling ground. in this family, we don't count sheep because we eat them. we shake our heads no under black light, we're all deep stream, counting down cows.   as the man points to the tracks, they couldn't have gone far.          Still fresh, still fresh.             Copyright © 2020 by Ching-In Chen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 6, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "'South in Hundreds' initially began as several one-hundred-word segments composed in a weekly group initiated by Oliver Baez Bendorf. In the poem, to evoke the ghostly dislocations and detachments involved in my journey of relocating from Houston to Seattle, I braided the separate segments. My family drove through Laramie, Wyoming, and paid our respects to Matthew Shepard; in Colorado we encountered a father looking for two missing girls in Rocky Mountain National Park." —Ching-In Chen   Ching-In Chen's most recent book is recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2017). They are currently an assistant professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and in the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics at the University of Washington Bothell and live in Seattle, Washington. Poetry by Chen   recombinant  Kelsey Street Press, 2017 "Evergreen" by Oliver Baez Bendorf "Epistle: Leaving" by Kerrin McCadden "Because 'Some Women Are" by Sasha Pimentel January Guest Editor: Meg Day   Thanks to Meg Day, author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A about Day's curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038