by Bruce Weigl

The difference between what you want
and what you’re allowed to have
is unspeakable. You know,
the things you only rarely tell
yourself, about desires only
those who let the world have
themselves can know, often risking
everything, that you may be
delivered to an abyss
of sorts where how for some there is
no saying no, to invitations
of even the darkest kind, or else
no resurrection, as if we had
another life. We only have
this one, inside of which we want
some things we’re not allowed to have,
that human flaw our way of thinking
is shaped around, sheer beauty of
what is, and what can never be.
I’m satisfied just the same.
A second lasts a million years
when you’re inside the bliss that you
were meant to be inside to live
a life of joyful purpose and
repose, beside the spirits who
are there because they have to be.

by Bruce Weigl

Trucks from the countryside
laden with peach blossom cuttings to sell
in the city for Tet, help clog
traffic even more as
the city makes ready for the lunar
celebration that is more
than “happy new year” and move on,
and instead, is a rich
accounting of the year already
gone, celebrated in
the ancient villages, Ha Noi
empty of traffic and mostly closed
except for vendors pushing carts
of street-food through the neighborhood,
calling out like in a song
whatever they have to sell, banh my,
French bread Ha Noi sandwiches,
a meal you can enjoy along
your walk through a mostly empty
city if you’re like me, and need
a little reckoning for things
done in the past that feels so long
ago, even the light that fills
these almost empty streets has changed,
wizened by the centuries
of Tet that bring the families back
inside the village life at last,
where everything’s connected like
inside a dream you never want
to end. There is no self the teacher
told me only yesterday,
so, I wonder at the landslide
coming down around me like
mortar rounds exploding inside
our small LZ, seeing
not what’s there, but what really
is, a way of being alive
inside what’s already gone,
the Tet a bridge between two different
ways of being in the world.

by Uche Nduka

As if sapphire
is a trap

between the waves
and you

wild offspring
of the unruly counselor

turning time
into berries

becoming the sky
from a deep place
between something and nothing

whipping up the base with brass

by Uche Nduka

In this nasty dawn
America has been shot
in the head on video
not a set up for my signature
I don’t know what’s forbidden
or what’s allowed
any more
the oblivion of night
isn’t redemptive
any more
marching boots masked men
rattle my bones
does it matter
that you’re not entirely mine
and I’m not entirely yours