The Swan, No. 3 (Hilma af Klint)
Copyright © 2025 by Victoria Chang. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 9, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
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OBIT [Memory]
Memory—died August 3, 2015. The
death was not sudden but slowly over a
decade. I wonder if, when people die,
they hear a bell. Or if they taste
something sweet, or if they feel a knife
cutting them in half, dragging through
the flesh like sheet cake. The caretaker
who witnessed my mother’s death quit.
She holds the memory and images and
now they are gone. For the rest of her
life, the memories are hers. She said
my mother couldn’t breathe, then took
2017
From “The Trees Witness Everything”
The Wild Geese
They are not wisdom
or freedom or history.
They are not what’s lost.
They are nothing but wild geese.
I can hear them everywhere,
wings pushing down metaphor.
Late Spring
2021
Dear P.
Someone will love you many will love
you many will brother you some of these
loves will bother you some will leave you
2017