Ira Sukrunguang
Homage to Chicken Little
Don’t look up, Little One. Keep
those O-eyes at the wilting oak in the distance.
The cracked branches and gnarled limbs
hold everything together.
What you feel, Little One, is not bits of sky,
not chipped clouds, but the world weeping
an ancient apology, pollen coating this life, shimmering our skin like triturated diamonds.
Memory
is a ten-piece puzzle of ducks in a pond, only you are terrible at puzzles, so you scissor
pieces to fit the way you want. When done
the image remains—one green-
headed mallard, three trailing chicks,
half of another severed, floating
in stilled water, and the sky above, chunks
of blue missing, holes
that lead to other planets, other impossibilities.
Ira Sukrungruang is the author of the memoirs Southside Buddhist and Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy, the short story collection The Melting Season, and the poetry collection In Thailand It Is Night. He is one of the founding editors of Sweet: A Literary Confection (sweetlit.com), and teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida.
To learn more, visit: www.buddhistboy.com.