Christopher Kennedy

Poem for Shang Qin
July 21, 2011 Kennedy Christopher

Poem for Shang Qin

 

I’ve been digging my way toward you since the day I was born. I watch the lamplight outside my window turn to diamonds and think of you. A dog barks in my sleep, and I dream of you eating figs under a banyan tree. In the morning, I look at the hopeful yellow sun. I think, What is the old master doing right now? Cursing the darkness? I’m alone, looking at a painting, and I think, What would he make of all this purple? I love tomorrow because I know you’re already there, standing upside down, walking along in the future with your strange shadow, changing your name to save your life.

Christopher Kennedy is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, Nietzsche’s Horse, Trouble with the Machine , and Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death. His work has appeared in Grand Street, Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, Mississippi Review, McSweeney’s and many other journals and magazines.