Hands
She came that way
plastic disfigured
her one leg the vision of a childhood
nightmare
hair the color
of dust motes pirouetting in the sun.
Those cobalt eyes
a slow disapproving midnight
glassy eager to nullify a world.
Plump arms peach-
skinned I turned
I turned them
by a swift crank of her palm.
I loved her as I loved
the girls in pristine stockings.
But I loved her
as though she were the only real thing.
Season of pure skin of bright
sensing as when Nội
gutted a trembling incisor
from my bottom row
threw it coldly over the rooftop...
Flooding pain
metal-red mouth doll
hands someday
your pain
will be useful
that sky
speaking in tongues
Alexandrine Vo was born in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, and is currently living and working in New York City. A Gates Scholar, she holds an MFA from Boston University, and was a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow and a George Starbuck Fellow there. Her poems have been published in the U.S., England, Ireland, and France, appearing in Salamander, Poetry Ireland Review, Popshot Magazine, CALYX, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. Her first collection, As Though We Are One, was chosen as Finalist for the Kundiman Poetry Prize 2015, and she is currently working on her second collection, The Gallant South. Find out more at maythefirst.net.
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