News of the Assassin

The reporters are

busy interviewing bees,

filming footage of

their team meetings to survive.

Things are killed each day,

someone murders time, closes

a window to rain.

Each day, a woman’s thoughts die,

we pin them to a man’s mind.

---

The Shortest Night

And when I looked up,

the sky had also turned black,

and I had aged a

hundred more feet down the road.

The owl was on the

next tree with mirrors as eyes,

in case I wanted

to see my future. When I

looked, I lost another year.

---

Ancestral Voices

I hate my own voice,

but someone after me will

wonder if my voice

was threadbare or if it

had tiny wings when I slept.

---

Lives of the Artists

I brush my hair and

wonder if you are watching.

I write a word and

attach it to a speaker—

someone please listen.

Words come out of my coffin,

made of maple. When

empty, it will return to

the trees who speak to no one.

---

The Gods

The fact that leaves can’t be put back on trees makes me

think that you do not exist.

---

VICTORIA CHANG's poetry books include OBIT, Barbie Chang, The Boss, Salvinia Molesta, and Circle. Her children’s books include Is Mommy?, illustrated by Marla Frazee, and Love, Love, a middle grade novel. She lives in Los Angeles and serves as the program chair of Antioch’s low-residency MFA program.