Third Day

a poem in which all a man’s nails are forcefully plucked out one by one

I find that poems I write have away
of shapeshifting into nameless pain—

a pain that bears a name is easier to bear,
because it can be called.

in this poem, like in my city,
bodies are found without their owners,

without eyes and
genitals and nails.

even if this pain has a name,
how do you lift the rock on your tongue?

I have found this year to begin
as mass burial,

with chasms in the earth.

Younglan Talyoung