Out of Research Into Reveries

                                   Give up      the brain 

        Offer down its clumsy

meditations      its blurred face

                      of fury      its hellbound 

      policies bugged into my throat

        Cough out

that sickled attitude      the ragged shelves

                    downing my ankles      every 

            era of hibernation

It’s all in the performance      the butcher 

      operating on slabs

of my identity      the bereaved dissecting

                      memories of an octopus

                        Lift out      far from of it 

      Careen the elbows      out of murk

                        with wine       taken by

                              the midsummer full 

                              moon

Constantly stoneward

                        hunting toward heartstill

Copyright © 2019 by Mai Der Vang. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 21, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.