Once this highland was our birthplace. Once
we were children of kings.
Now I am a Siamese rosewood on fire.
I am a skin of sagging curtain.
I am a bone of bullet hole.
I am locked in the ash oven of a forest.
Peb yog and we will be.
The sky sleeps quilted in a militia of stars.
Someone has folded
gold and silver spirit
money into a thousand tiny boats.
Peb yog
hmoob and we will be.
I am hungry as the beggar who cracked
open a coconut to find
the heart of a wild gaur.
Hmoob and we
will be.
The tree is more ancient
than its homeland,
shedding its annual citrine
as hourglass dripping honey.
Peb yeej ib txwm yog
hmoob.
I dig and dig for no more roots to dig.
I soldier with my severed
legs, my fallen ear.
I’ve become the shrill
air in a bamboo pipe—the breath
of an army of bells.
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