on the trail, we walk past stinging nettle, draping
in eloquent green stalks down the path: If you’re stung,

know it will pass. a younger self once refused to listen—
ignorant to the worlds laced within a decomposing

hemlock tree. am I older now, old enough to coax
the thimbleberry off the bud, soft and already summoning

a slippery red sugar between my fingers? we pass by
an eagle’s feather, pristine and white, large atop the moss.

behind the moon, time howls, and I remember how,
this summer, sweeping your grave for the first time,

pine needles, not dust, clung to my open hands.
T played the voicemail her daughter had recorded

for you: I miss you; I’ve missed you for so many years, while
on & on, the soft spool of my childhood glistened:

summers I returned to you, bearing supermarket ice cream cones
enshrined in plastic. breakfasts by the white clock, your back

a turned frame depositing tea leaf eggs softly into a plastic blue
bowl. clink, clink, remember? peeling open those eggs with our

hands, the whole morning resplendent with steam and salt
so that, even now, time thickening the distance between us,

I follow you in each leafy shadow, each lithe branch. if I cast
a prayer, speak Revere, Reverence, I might watch the water wrinkle

with sound. of course, you knew little about the natural world
and, living across oceans, could never have talked to me

about sword ferns or overripe figs splitting at the seams.
but when I walk, I sense We in the stones, the firs, the webs

bound by some other nameless creature with legs.
nearby, your mouth plays truant in the light.

—

Carlina Duan is the author of poetry collections I Wore My Blackest Hair (Little A, 2017) and Alien Miss (Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2021). Her recent poems have appeared in POETRY, Narrative Magazine, Poets.org, The Kenyon Review, and other places. Carlina is an assistant professor in English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she teaches poetry. Among many things, she loves river walks, snail mail, and being a sister. www.carlinaduan.com.