M. Cynthia Cheung
—
Forest Sauvage
after Agha Shahid Ali’s “Tonight”
The foal lies wet, curled
in a hollow
of snow. It does not
try to stand.
god, limit these punishments
The foal was not born
a horse, though legend says
its mother was. Whose spear
now shafts through its neck?
lord, cried out the idols,
don’t let us be broken
Pyres flare and lick.
Carelessly, shadows leap
among the wounded, and the trees
swallow their groans.
in the heart’s veined temple,
all statues have been smashed
An old hero-king
once vowed to awaken
and return from death.
His hooves:
soft as feathers.
prisons, let open your gates
How does any creature bear
its own weight, or the breaking
of its bones? The sun’s rays
stiffening. Already, they insist
upon every silence.
M. Cynthia Cheung is a physician whose writing can be found in The Baltimore Review, RHINO, Salamander, SWWIM, Tupelo Quarterly and others. Currently, she serves as a judge for Baylor College of Medicine’s annual Michael E. DeBakey Medical Student Poetry Awards. mcynthiacheung.com
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