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Articles by Khaty Xiong
Silence Comes from Somewhere Else
Find and share the perfect poems. translated from the Macedonian by the author When at evening I hear the voice of my dead mother, I summon deer to my side— they who understand all the languages of fear without saying a word. I would invite them into the courtyard of quiet changes and ask them about the sins of the unborn, about the distance between the blood of two enemies after the war. I would ask them to lock the silence— secret of the open eyes.
Khaty Xiong | Poetry Foundation
Khaty Xiong is the author of the poetry collection Poor Anima (Apogee Press, 2015) and the chapbooks Ode to the Far Shore (2016), Deer Hour (2014), and Elegies (2013). Her poems have appeared in Poetry magazine, Gulf Coast, pulpmouth, The Adroit Journal, The Margins, Lantern Review, and elsewhere. Xiong, who is Hmong, earned a BA from Ohio Northern University and an MFA from the University of Montana.
Columbarium for Past Autumns
For a time the home was lost to me my mouth forged in the night as I dreamed away the barriers—stars lengthening the line of my gaze beryl bones rushed to storm— To my eternal right clouds in immediate rotation mother mutating past clay and desire too light to form too dead to surrender like meat made tender by memory— effortless my head at the helm towards pardon my hands passing through water her eye on the wretched edge seeding air with every intention of life— such mischief even from the...
The Pardoning Hour
Here at my parents’ farm trumpeting bees scoring in the ears of all flowerkind chilies and kabocha 3,400 searing stakes of Indian bitter melon Nkauj Hnub in her hot prison bearing witness. My father emerges from the field his arms in blooming greens and yellows a mutable image I never thought possible my life running in every direction devoted and never into death. My father calls me over.
On Teaching My Son How to Mourn
I tell him to touch his toes. He reaches for them in a squat. He stabs them with his little fingers. One toe. Two toes. Then we say our letters, spell out all the sounds we will deliver because the death of a child is no small death. I extend to him an open palm where he makes a fist and slams it into my hand, a form, he wearily shouts, is “a butterfly coming home!” We play “give me a five” and continue swatting at the butterflies until the sun goes down.
On Visiting the Franklin Park Conservatory & Botanical Gardens by Khaty Xiong
I have come to collect the various species of America: I am separate from the boy Tucked in the corner of a window, a white morpho, the only kind to perch long enough for me to satisfy as I pulse & pace to get a closer look. I am separate from the boy who climbs a nearby tower Perhaps I am half of this?—?a set of dots for eyes, spine for spine, my insides half my father’s?—? whose torso fell early in harvest?—?a bed of muscle to hold her from splitting in two?—?
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