the tiniest mythologies

annie ho
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what you should know to be a poet

by gary snyder

all you can about animals as persons.

the names of trees and flowers and weeds.
names of stars, and the movements of the planets
and the moon.

your own six senses, with a watchful and elegant mind.

at least one kind of traditional magic:

divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot;

dreams.
the illusory demons and illusory shining gods;

kiss the ass of the devil and eat shit;

fuck his horny barbed cock,
fuck the hag,
and all the celestial angels
and maidens perfum'd and golden –

& then love the human: wives husbands and friends.

children's games, comic books, bubble -gum,

the weirdness of television and advertising.

work, long dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted

and livd with and finally lovd. exhaustion,
hunger, rest.

the wild freedom of the dance, extasy

silent solitary illumination, entasy

real danger. gambles. and the edge of death.

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Contents
s e a s i c k ............................................................................ 5
c r o n u s ............................................................................. 6
t u e s d a y h o r o s c o p e ................................................................ 7
n a v a r r e ............................................................................ 8
n o t e s o n v u l n e r a b i l i t y .......................................................... 9
b a b y f e v e r ....................................................................... 10
p a p a v e r s o n i f e r u m ............................................................... 11
t h e f a m i l i a r i t y o f h o l l o w n e s s ................................................. 12
f i r s t w i n t e r ..................................................................... 13
p a p s m e a r ......................................................................... 14
s o f t n e s s i s n ’ t f o r b r o w n g i r l s ................................................ 15
i r e m e m b e r m y s e l f , u n g r a c e f u l a n d s t o u t ..................................... 15
m y g r a n d p a r e n t s a s k w h y i d o n ’ t c a l l a n y m o r e ............................... 16
j e f f r e y ........................................................................... 17
p o p l a r s t . ....................................................................... 18
l a s t s u m m e r ...................................................................... 19
rainy season ....................................................................... 20
beholden ........................................................................... 21
studies of light ................................................................... 22
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seasick

the pacific rests bluer than the atlantic

the atlantic: pools at my feet like shower water
the pacific: endless like the well that sits outside ba’s old village

my family goes deep sea diving

and our flesh fins clumsily adjust to the water
my ma bears broken pearls
my ba becomes lost at sea

at night, i stand & watch the moon

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cronus

you spent your last golden days submerged in yourself,

your hand mirror by your side like a dagger.

i, the perfect parasite, emerged from your brine.

you, who i sometimes call Mama, and on some days, God.
(but you prefer God)

i, ugly and purple screaming banshee, remin d you,

Mama, of the liminality of even your certainties,
my sulfurous body reveling in your fury and destruction.

& you, God, hate the possibility of your impotence

more than you could ever hate time,
or even me.

(& so God, the vengeful bitch that she i s,

swallows me whole into her darkness where
my oily body sloshes hollowly in her brackish navel.)
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tuesday horoscope

we run into a still flock of pigeons on our walk to the subway station
is it a blessing or omen or
nothing at all?

i feel wild
and read you your daily horoscope in the crosswalk:

full moon in virgo sets magic in motion; my fire to your air

you laugh as i try to plow through the pigeons

i am a bull in a china shop and
the ubiquitous Big City vermin stare back as if to say,
“who are you? you’re nobody”
and they go back to
dodging cigarette butts and
getting fat on food truck falafel and
fading into the graytone cityscape and
only noticing each other and
they tell me to go back to bumfucknowhere georgia
and one proceeds to shit on my foot and follow me
to the subway as if only to prove that it could

and appalled, i say: these city pigeons have grown complacent, but
you marvel at these city pigeons and their boldness
“they’ve just learned how to live”

i feel bad for the complacent city pigeons because

they’ve never noticed the blue of the sky or
the way a hot georgian summer wraps you up
and fills you up so completely and fully that you
pour over like a cold glass of lipton iced tea
and i am certain the complacent city pigeon ha s
never seen the blue of your eyes nor felt a
complete love as i have
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navarre

knee-deep in the brackish water, ba ngoai and i searched for shells.

on opposite shores, we pressed our ears against them and spoke,
the echoes sounding out until we found on e another,
palms pressed tightly, our pearls untouched.
when i press my ear against the seashells now,
i can only hear the hollowness of the waves.
they don't leave answers, only questions:

-how many miles until home?

-do you remember your whale songs?

on many nights, i lie in strangers’ beds, belly up like a soft -shelled

crab.
we take turns peeling each other's rinds off in the sun,
and the retreating waves take our husks away until we are nothing.

how quick and seamless, how easy it is

to undo decades of love within the bat of an eye.

“don’t stay in the water for so long!”

ba ngoai warned me that the salt will dry me into nothing.

i submerge myself in the water

and i wait.
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notes on vulnerability

you ask:
what’s the difference between a cat scr atch and a back scratch?
i answer “i don’t know” in between mouthfuls of ash.
my limbs are splayed out like yesterday’s kill on your bed.

we shape ourselves like prepubescent synchronized swimmers.

we move our limbs like careless children at play.

left-
then,
right.

our supine bodies mirror one another’s &

my nose presses against yours like a child peering into a shop window.

what is the difference between a cat scratch and a back scratch?

it’s:
-the phantom limb syndrome when your bod y unravels itself around me in
the morning
-your amber porch light turned to nothing by the rising sun
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baby fever

i think about you when the moon sits fat and ripe in the sky -
pungent and low hanging, ready for the cull

i swat the pomegranate moon when Sky Ghost forgets to look

& pry open her white flesh while silent Ghosts look on

her blood-red juices spread like stretchmarks on her form

my jowls ache and grind and my body tries to mimic your fullness

i cry and recite my apologies - a laundry list of sins

Sky Ghost cries and wrings her hands together
and House Ghost smirks as if to say “i told you so”

but both seem satisfied

when they leave me, i whisper my thanks to my treacherous body

i set aside seeds for you- one for every year you would have had
i swallow all five and then cut off my tongue for good measure
the Ghosts with no name look at me and grin knowingly & hungrily

persephone forgave her mother, but

did demeter forgive herself?
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papaver soniferum

the morning that you left,

you brewed yourself poppy seed
tea, and by nighttime,
you had divined
a new life for yourself at
the porcelain bottom

our feline bodies wrapped

around one another for warmth,
and the moon, She curdled
your face so perfectly that you
became a moonbeam in my arms,
and the streetlights, they hummed our
names so softly as we fell asleep

when i woke up, a

trail of papaver somniferum settled
where your form once was and
the moon retreated back into herself

what we do not say goodbye to

remains with us
i scatter nepeta cataria around my house,
and say “see you later”
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the familiarity of hollowness

the vietnamese do not love from the heart,

minh thuong tu trong long- from the gut-
a lesson my ma taught me as a child:
to carry my love in my stomach,
as she once carried me for nine months
my ba told me the strongest love is
the one you feel from the gut
(the heart is a weak organ)

when you say you love me now,

i want to crush myself open like ripe mang cut,
for it is better to break myself
than to permit you, or even myself, this softness
and when you say i am your whole heart,
i know your tinh thuong means nothing
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first winter

i am a crushed velvet flower

on your bed
you pluck my petals and let
them fall on your tissue paper sheets
crush me open and plant your seeds

&& wilting in your earth,

i am a crushed velvet flower
your georgia o’keefe dream
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pap smear

i feel trapped in the stirrups-am i rider or horse?

i think about middle school frog dissections && try to stare at the
overhead light, pretend it is the sun and i am 4 again && if i stare long
enough, a beautiful burst of primary colors will dot my vision

the disembodied fingers press into my softness &&

the doctor’s voice is a cacophony of jargon + male && i want to hop out
of the chair and say “ribbet!”

make a run for the water where i can be safe and whole
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softness isn’t for brown girls

i remember myself, ungraceful and stout

sweaty and frustrated after ballet class
lizzy and i, down to nothing but our leotards,
pressed our bare limbs together, gentle snowfall on earth

i used to marvel at Whiteness,

the way it would press its saccharine fists against my tongue -
only to pull back its sticky fingers to leave behind
the bittersweetness of an unattainable desire

i used to marvel at them:

girls like human light beams that drifted around me
opalescent with down-feather edges begging to be touched -
roseate existences in an otherwise sepia -toned world

my ocher skin cracks and detaches itself as i mimic living

the fallout lining
my bed
the bathroom floor
the deli down the street
the peeling gold-foil exposes skin, raw and red &
angry and tough, a reminder that softness is not for me

by candlelight, i pull out the worn cotton lining

in my chest and tuck it in my ballerina music box
before bed, i pull back my tar hair and feel along the edges of my face
i break my jawbone and file my dull edges into daggers

my ballerina plies and pirouettes pristinely in her box

softness is not a luxury afforded to brown girls
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my grandparents ask why i don’t ca ll anymore

my grandparents leave fresh mangoes

and rice wine out for the lost spirits,
light incense for our ancestors in
exchange for our daily blessings

i left my favorite 99 cent lipstick

and 43 cents on your dresser,
lit a smoke at the bus stop to mask
the scent of your gas station body spray
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jeffrey

it is 6:30 in athens a friday

three days after you left, yes
it is 2016 and i go grab a coffee,
sink into the plastic frame of my chair and i will
leave at 6:45 to go buy cigarettes for dinner
because food is for the living or those who want It

i walk up the humid street beginning to darken

and have your shirt button in my hand and i buy
a newspaper only to rip out the horoscope to see what
the stars have to tell me today
i go on to the supermarket
and i see your mother who
doesn’t even look up from her heirloom tomatoes
and in the flickering fluorescent Whole Foods i
think of the way the moon curdled your face as
i laid in your bed, your arm sprawled across my soft belly
and i run out and drop all of my tangerines

and i am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

smoking another cigarette in the parking lot
and suddenly i am crying “it’s a summer day,
and i want you to love me again more than anything else in the world”
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poplar st.

12:02am:
liquid amber night diffuses into my lungs
& ur fingers do a frantic tarantella along my thighs.
the streetlights whisper to us (“good luck”)

2:34am:
[the night air lingers :: an angry slap on my styrofoam skin]
our bodies crumple like wet leaves on the sidewalk
& their limbs mold misshapen stars on ur tissue -paper bedsheets.

4:00am:
i watch the Moon curdle ur perfect face & She smiles at me - placid.
in the doorway, i shed the fur coat i slept in (Cold forgot to come & i’m
no small creature)
the streetlights hum my name & i turn around & wave (“goodbye”)
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last summer

was not like last summer, we said, when summer

had wringed out the rest of the cold from her
hair like down feathers:
Atlanta hotter than Austin
and the moon hung her shadow over us like an old linen on a clothesline.
last summer, we danced like small children and lost our way, the kudzu
snaking persistently
along the sides of your house, and into your yard, where, glass -eyed and
happy,
we sat with unlit cigarettes, and bellies
molten with the uncertainty of youth
and new love,
liquid fire snaking its way through our veins and organs.
we’d lie awake, not touching,
and listen to the steady humming of the night.
is it the cicadas or the current of our bodies -
our bodies that are not touching, yet
conducting.
surrounded by the stillness of the heat
and the night breeze snaking its
tendrils over our skin, we’d drift
to sleep, the cacophony of you
and me quieting, but not ceasing.
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rainy season

chuc mung nam moi!

new year brings new luck

my ma wants to know when i am

coming home with a nice boy and all i can think of is

how new brides in their white dresses crumple

like ghost paper in the rain
&& how grooms lift their women gently
with two hands as if laying them out on a dish
their greedy Cheshire mouths grinning ear to ear

how new brides with their blood-red mouths

look like sad clowns at the carnival
watching their bleary-eyed drunk grooms
in the dancehall, shaking hands of those
congratulating him on his new addition

the harvest is supposed to be good this year! she winks

i crush my red envelope under my fist, hope for a dry season

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beholden

my mama and i mourn my girl hood- interrupted,

punctuated in the sweltering embrace of summer
mama says that looking at me is
like seeing her reflection in a rusted out looking glass
like wedging a sharp knife cleanly thorough her floating ribs

mother nature works her way into me like a stubborn thorn in my side
i am wilting like mama's roses in the garden at night
&& the cicadas buzz with anticipation, warning me of the last Golden Days

mama says that to be woman is to be beholden to the men that hold you

i am good i do as i say as i am told as they see fit

i scrub away my desires then the dishes then the clothes then myself wring my hands
then my body fling myself onto the clothesline to dry

i am fine i am clean i am pure

my father would be proud and pleased to hand me off to my new husband, neat and
starched
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studies of light

morning:
sun
caught in the
blades of your shoulder
illuminating your
big dipper freckles

afternoon:
light
bright like
the singing of the homeless
man down the street through
our open window

twilight:
soft
pink against
the eggshell of the bedroom
warm blush spreading
from sky to
face to
bellies

night:
moon
carves out the
boundaries of our bodies
and the stars are
all-knowing and smug
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annie ho is a human who proudly makes bad art. they believe in the
inexorable power of poetry. they can be reached at annie.ho14@gmail.com