Snow shudders on bending grass, steeling
against the settling ice, cold as stones.
As a child, I believed in separate afterlives.
That some souls slept deep underground,
dreaming glimpses of cut-up lifelines, scattered
like flower petals from stalks ripped at the root,
that the ravenous ground chewed and spat out.
Other days I believed in a cloud-crowned paradise,
blanched with forgetting. I dreamed of bridges
and always crossing over, one to the other.
And you, my love, resting your shaven head
on pillows painted hospital blue,
blinking at the sunlight stretching to linger
on the dying chrysanthemums by your bed,
you ask me if we’ll meet again. Voice breaking
amid light laughter, the words I’ll see you next life
wedged between our teeth. As a child,
I believed in separate afterlives.
Now, in the minutes before oblivion, there’s snow.
Linen soft, falling on the bridge between us.
When you die, I will believe in something different.
Will stretch the universe paper thin, until
the sky drips black and white.
Down by the cemetery, a pine bough bends
heavy with the weight.
A heart breaks with the bracken.
Shifts the snow.
against the settling ice, cold as stones.
As a child, I believed in separate afterlives.
That some souls slept deep underground,
dreaming glimpses of cut-up lifelines, scattered
like flower petals from stalks ripped at the root,
that the ravenous ground chewed and spat out.
Other days I believed in a cloud-crowned paradise,
blanched with forgetting. I dreamed of bridges
and always crossing over, one to the other.
And you, my love, resting your shaven head
on pillows painted hospital blue,
blinking at the sunlight stretching to linger
on the dying chrysanthemums by your bed,
you ask me if we’ll meet again. Voice breaking
amid light laughter, the words I’ll see you next life
wedged between our teeth. As a child,
I believed in separate afterlives.
Now, in the minutes before oblivion, there’s snow.
Linen soft, falling on the bridge between us.
When you die, I will believe in something different.
Will stretch the universe paper thin, until
the sky drips black and white.
Down by the cemetery, a pine bough bends
heavy with the weight.
A heart breaks with the bracken.
Shifts the snow.
Mandy Moe Pwint Tu is a writer and a poet from Yangon, Myanmar. Her work has appeared in Longleaf Review, Tint Journal, and the Santa Ana River Review, among others. She currently studies English at the University of the South. Hang out with her on Twitter @mandrigall.