Red Bird

A red bird
perched and
sang a song of
leaves and rain,
summer storms
of May:

The driving rain,
phantom bullets,
a windmill turning
in the night:

Bird perched on
the mill,
signal in
the night,
solitary red:

Within a May-
storm
of leaves and rain,
the red bird
caught and held
my eye.

 

This Is Suburbia

I have wandered far afield,
where the face of things sticks to the outermost rim.
Let me round this circle,
this corner of a neighborhood.
I have seen play swings and sand buckets
and cars driving far from the curb,
children with red rimmed bikes
and balloons to float behind.
There is another setting sun
to heat the zinc roof, the Pleiades shine
o’er the hilltop—have you seen the white-tailed deer
that runs along the train tracks?
Or the running path, haunt of jogging men
in early mornings
when early morning news flies by,
sounding board of presidents and plumbers.
See the eyes reflected in the coffee spoon.

Faye Yan Zhang is a visual artist, filmmaker, and writer residing in Washington, D.C. Her works have appeared in the Harvard Advocate and Plain China. Her visual art portfolio is: www.fayeyanzhang.com