Aaron Crippen

Two Poems

Bottled Stars

Pink,
lilac,

blood brown.

Every flower, on every stem,
is wilted.
But you, Violet, blaze.

Wilt nips your tips of violet fear-fire.

Why fear go?

Your friends, for their deaths,
are no less beautiful.

See?  Iris is a cloud of moth,
and tranquil Orchid,
the wing of a bird that's flown.



Second Nature

From the soil of Shanghai
a forest is rising,
rising to meet the sky
of smog, thick
smog.

It blots the skyline.

Blunted pagodas,
blocked,
cornered,
rise.

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