Wail
Johnson Cheu
    for the young who ask, "How did you learn 
                                            to like yourself?"

There are glaciers, imposing , yet shrinking.
There is the iris, violet sky cradling shares of sun.
The white Bengal tiger, snow and black inky.
Infinite reasons I could give for gladness,

though some may salve the wound from which
your question arises, how to be glad to be alive?
Stitch your hearts fissure: recall family, friends,
a slap, cigarette burn, the rod something searched

down, or welled up in your darkened pupil.
Turn outward: two A. M. streets, creeps in cars,
the chaos of human folly delivered by calm,
coiffed news anchors. The wound is within you

and not. The answer within you and not.
Want, comfort, desire, love ought not be wounds.
We pine for them from our first wail,
what you must give and take, till no voice is left.

Johnson Cheu is a poet and assistant professor in the
department of writing, rhetoric, and American culture 
at Michigan State University.