In show one of two, Victoria Chang discusses writing poetry that gets close to human feeling, while knowing that language will never be able to get to the entirety of that feeling. Written after her mother died, Obit, her new book, is an inch from sorrow; it’s a remarkable book for anyone dealing with grief (as we all are during the pandemic). Obit is as interested in consolation and acceptance as it is in the fearsome expression of the unbearable aspects of grief.

An excerpt from “Obit,” by Victoria Chang.

Ambition

Ambition—died on August 3, 2015, a

sudden death. I buried ambition in the

forest, next to distress. They used to

take walks together until ambition

pushed distress off the embankment.

Now, they put a bracelet around my

father’s ankle. The alarm rings when

he gets too close to the door. His

ambitious nature makes him walk to

the door a lot. When the alarm rings,

he gets distressed. He remembers that

he wants to find my house. He thinks

he can find my house. His fingerprints

have long vanished from my house.

Some criminals put their fingers on

electric coils of a stove to erase their

fingerprints. But it only makes them

easier to find. They found my father in

the middle of the road last month, still

like a bulbless lamp, unable to recall its

function, confused like the moon. At

the zoo, a great bald eagle sits in a

small cage because of a missing wing.

Its remaining wing is grief. Above the

eagle, a bird flying is the eagle’s

memory and its prey, the future.

Copyright © 2018 by Victoria Chang. Originally published in West Branch. Used with the permission of the poet.

The Clock

The Clock—died on June 24, 2009 and

it was untimely. How many times my

father has failed the clock test. Once I

heard a scientist with Alzheimer’s on

the radio, trying to figure out why he

could no longer draw a clock. It had to

do with the superposition of three

types. The hours represented by 1-12,

the minutes where a 1 no longer

represents 1 but a 5, and a 2 now

represents 10, then the second hand

that measures 1 to 60. I sat at the

stoplight and thought of the clock, its

perfect circle and its superpositions, all

the layers of complication on a plane of

thought, yet the healthy read the clock

in one single instant without a second

thought. I think about my father and

his lack of first thoughts, how every

thought is a second or third or fourth

thought, unable to locate the first most

important thought. I wonder about the

man on the radio and how far his brain

has degenerated since. Marvel at how

far our brains allow language to

wander without looking back but

knowing where the pier is. If you

unfold an origami swan, and flatten the

paper, is the paper sad because it has

seen the shape of the swan or does it

aspire towards flatness, a life without

creases? My father is the paper. He

remembers the swan but can’t name it.

He no longer knows the paper swan

represents an animal swan. His brain is

the water the animal swan once swam

in, holds everything, but when thawed,

all the fish disappear. Most of the

words we say have something to do

with fish. And when they’re gone,

they’re gone.

Copyright © 2018 by Victoria Chang. Originally published in Kenyon Review. Used with the permission of the poet.