Theory Theory
A cow jumped over the moon
and became a children's
tale. It's why cheese is filled
with moon craters.
It's why drinking milk fills
out the crescent nature
of the stomach,
which is a poet's way
to say children are right
to fear the dark.
Here's to father sky,
to mother earth.
Here's to my heteronormative
way of understanding
the human condition.
I’ve made a lot of poor
decisions. I don't drink
milk. My bones collected
my father's smoke.
When I snapped my elbow,
my mother drove me
to the hospital and told me
she was right,
that I should have drank
my milk. This is how a poem
begins. You experience
something for the first time,
like a newborn baby
trying to make the right sounds
to get someone to understand
you need something.
You don't imagine yourself
crying. There's the first breath.
There's light. You sing a song
to the doctors and nurses:
you cry where, where,
until you fall asleep.
by Kien Lam
and became a children's
tale. It's why cheese is filled
with moon craters.
It's why drinking milk fills
out the crescent nature
of the stomach,
which is a poet's way
to say children are right
to fear the dark.
Here's to father sky,
to mother earth.
Here's to my heteronormative
way of understanding
the human condition.
I’ve made a lot of poor
decisions. I don't drink
milk. My bones collected
my father's smoke.
When I snapped my elbow,
my mother drove me
to the hospital and told me
she was right,
that I should have drank
my milk. This is how a poem
begins. You experience
something for the first time,
like a newborn baby
trying to make the right sounds
to get someone to understand
you need something.
You don't imagine yourself
crying. There's the first breath.
There's light. You sing a song
to the doctors and nurses:
you cry where, where,
until you fall asleep.
by Kien Lam
Kien Lam a recent graduate of the Indiana University MFA program. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Pleiades, PANK, and Salt Hill. He's as mean as the rumors make him out to be, unless the rumors are kind, in which case don't believe anything you hear.
