Emma Miao
War
I walk the field. Little jewels croon,
cotton buds to a glittering sun.
In the waning dusk, my fingers smother
the bulb. My hometown on the hill.
I pickpocket the field, trample the herbs,
sawdust light. Slink salt-dusted paths,
bleached silt scattering gold-limbed wind.
My two stinging hands. Opium seeds,
like gunsmoke, drift down the harbor.
Emma Miao is a poet from Vancouver, BC. She is the author of Geography of Mothers (Frog Hollow Press, 2021). Her poems are published in Diode Poetry Journal, HOBART, Frontier Poetry, Atlanta Review, Permafrost Magazine, Rust + Moth, and The Fiddlehead. Her poem "Rabbits on the Balcony" won the 2020 Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem. She likes iced coffee by the beach.