Cloud Hands

A woman moves through a Cloud Hands position,
                        holding and rotating

an invisible globe—thud, shattering glass, moan,
                        horn blast—so many

worlds to this world—two men dipnet
                        sockeye salmon

at the mouth of a river—from a rooftop, a seagull
                        squawks and cries;

a woman moves through Grasp the Bird’s Tail
                        someone on a stretcher

is wheeled past glass doors—a desert fivespot
                        rises in a wash—

and, pressing her tongue to the roof
                        of her mouth,

she focuses, in the near distance, on the music
                        of sycamore leaves.

From Sight Lines. Copyright © 2019 by Arthur Sze. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.