Poetry: Swallow by Lynn Wang
Lynn Wang’s new poem menaces your faith, your homebound security—”Swallow” is a tight work of sincere doubt, angling in its accusations and tight little lines for some fair and true sense of “inviolability.”
SWALLOW
It is not the prey of any other animal…
It has foresight because it goes
out to fall and does not seek the heights.
—Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, Book 12, 7:70
I know you, devout one,
your inviolability
crumpling into rubble
like your mouth at
the end of prayer.
Child, milk-and-water
grace will never grant
power of flight.
Ask as you are
tying yourself to
supplication, who is
holding the other end
of the string? Take it
from me: only ask
for shelter when you have
a chance to escape it.
Lynn Wang
Lynn Wang has an MFA from UC Irvine and has been published in The Journal and Zócalo Public Square. She lives in Los Angeles.
