ABOVE WAN CHAI The shrimp paste colored moon is intently watching an older woman on her balcony cutting fruit with a profound precision—she could do it blindfolded. She’s as much a part of history as any general ever was. The blue house across the street has somehow gotten bluer, blue as the sea where the freighters sit, awaiting orders. CLEANSING SOME WOUNDS These days, in this era, I’ll take good luck wherever I find it. Which is why I’m waiting for the ladybug who’s landed on a man’s head, a woman’s breast and the rim of a tuba on her way to my hand, where I’ll cup her with both before gently flicking her out into the sky to spread her good luck as far as she can, doing the heroic work brief lives often do. Surely, things will be a little better, nobler then. Surely.
Tim Suermondt is the author of five full-length collections of poems, the latest Josephine Baker Swimming Pool from MadHat Press, 2019. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, The Galway Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
Grand Little Things 