Poetry
SUMMER 2023Unsung, Five Cinquains
by XIAOLY LI
Head high,
Wild turkey struts
Across our frosty street
Iridescent like a peacock:
Stunning.
Leafless
In wind in snow,
The bare magnolia tree—
Its buds expand and burst fresh red,
Awake.
We bow
To trees for life,
Ignore tiny diatoms,
Every other breath we owe
To them!
The Sun,
Worshipped as God,
Is a monster that burns,
Subdued by the ozone layer,
Disarmed.
Hard-shelled,
You talk outright,
Tears flow only inward.
You help others without saying,
Soft inside.
Winter landscape attributed to Jiang Song (first half sixteenth century)
Xiaoly Li
Xiaoly Li is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant (2022) recipient. Her poetry collection, Every Single Bird Rising (FutureCycle Press, April 2023), was a Zone 3 Press Book Award finalist. Her poetry appears in Salamander, Saranac Review, Spillway, PANK, Chautauqua, Rhino, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for Best New Poets, Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. She lives in Massachusetts, where her photography is shown and sold in galleries in Boston. Xiaoly received her PhD in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and her master’s in computer science and engineering from Tsinghua University in China. Her website is xiaolyli.art.