Anni Liu

Two POEMS

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Tracks

Past boarded houses & old cemetery stones
blank as teeth,

the railway bridge takes us
over the river.
October & soon
the snows, the long winter

we’re not sure
we can endure.

On a rot-dark rail-tie: a scattering
of bones.

One the length of my finger,
thin & faded as a day moon.

An ivory ring,
the puzzle sequence of spine.

No skull to give the creature a face.

A squirrel we think, or maybe
something larger,
something that struggled

as the hawk tore at its pelt.

Was it drawn to the tracks
as we are, magnetized
to heat and promise?

We bury the bones in our pockets.

Turning for home
we balance
on the polished rails.

The river keeps moving away beneath us,
beneath tracks that appear—

in the distance—to meet.

Permaculture

Silver shadow of frost darkens to dew
as we build new pasture for sheep,
you carrying the stakes as I drive them
into the ground. The ewes gather, watching
with uncanny eyes. Midday: apples drop
into the grass’s open hands.
When we stoop to gather them, some
are warm with sun, others sweetly damp
with the earth from which they came.
We taste one from each tree, pass it hand
to hand until only stem remains. We sing
shepherd songs of mountains and places
only the voice can reach. Pleasure like an ache
finds each work-weary body,
each tremble-weighted limb.

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Anni Liu is a writer from Xi'an, Shaanxi and Bowling Green, Ohio. ​A recipient of the inaugural Undocupoets Fellowship, she is currently pursuing her MFA at Indiana University and serving as poetry editor of Indiana Review. Some of her writings can be found or are forthcoming in Third Coast, Sonora Review, and Grist Journal.