Miriam Wei Wei Lo (b. 1973)
SELECTED POEMS
Catching the L-Words
an epithalamium
Who can explain connection? The yes and the no of it:
one thread chosen from a multitude of tangling
possibilities, one thought leaping between two minds,
one football kicked in the air, a heart falling, into hands
held open to catch. Collision’s consequence.Could it be happy? This chance? This collision? Do
you believe? In the L-words? Not loser, not two-timing
low-life, but L – L – L … Laughter, that bubbling
overflow, the body caught in the moment of delight,
sounding out its involuntary, infectious response — the
glory of giggles. L – L – L … Long may you live in the
lift of laughter, the liberating reprieve of levity, its liquid
lightness.When sorrow comes (and it will), when the story spirals
out of control, when the words snap, when the bed is
cold, when the balls cannot be caught, when the phone
is slammed down and the screen shatters into a
thousand echoing fragments of regret, may you fall into
L – L – L … Love, that longsuffering thing that turns up,
like God, when you least expect it, when all is lost,
when there is nothing more you can do.Don’t let go of love. Let it circle you like the rings that
you wear. It is the single thing that can carry you
through calamity’s cataclysm, that can turn the stories
of your scars towards hope, that can bear you, shining
and whole, through death’s door, into that invisible
world that waits for us, where justice rolls down like
waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.May your longings always lead you to lasting landings.
by Miriam Wei Wei Lo
from Who Comes Calling? (2023)
