Trojan Poetry 51: "Spell to Find Family" by Chen Chen

Useful Links:
Chen Chen Interview:https://youtu.be/zcEpHI-Wsag

Chen Chen reading: https://youtu.be/Z12amGb1lLw

Trojan Poetry is created by John Waite and Mike Melie, teachers at North High School in Downers Grove. Follow us on twitter @TrojanPoetrydgn.

Spell to Find Family
for Kundiman
I thirst for the starlight
that opens elephant skin.
I thirst for the raven
conjugated into riven
by summer storm.
My job is to trick adults
into knowing they have
hearts. My heart whose
irregular plural form is
Hermes. My Hermes
whose mouths are wings
& thieves, begging
the moon for a flood
of wolves, the reddest
honey. My job is to trick
myself into believing
there are new ways
to find impossible honey.
For I do not know all the faces
of my family, on this earth.
Perhaps it will take a lifetime
(or five) to discover every
sister, brother. Heartbeat
elephantine, serpentine,
opposite of saturnine.
I drive in the downpour,
the road conjugated
into uproar, by hearts
I do not know.
By the guttural & gargantuan
highway lion. The 18
-wheeler
whose shawl of mist is a mane
of newborn grandmothers.