Your Pelvis in the Middle of a Storm by Vi Khi Nao
- 24 hours ago
- 2 min read
Here, the fog covers the street
Muffling the sounds
of my lips on the door
of your muscle
Only our nocturnal embrace remains
On a plate
This luminous simplicity!
In the weightlessness of our bodies
The door to death isn’t a reversible shirt
As all of you drink the champagne of my morning
While your prisoner is your friend
Unlike everything else about you, I uncage my sex
I tell all your mussels to fall asleep with me
As I don’t think suicide can be explained
Does your plate know her motivations?
You thank your friend for easing your pain
The Nordic one. The one with accomplished femininity
The one who committed suicide.
You conceded an explanation that might be impossible
How high are my limitations?
As high as your rainforest?
As I don’t think I value your ambitions enough
As your voice tells me the most obvious
La mort est inévitable, on sait qu'elle
est scandale ça c'est inévitable !
VI KHI NAO is a Vietnamese American writer and interdisciplinary artist whose work spans visual art, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, film, and cross-genre collaboration. She is the author of seven poetry collections, including A Bell Curve Is A Pregnant Straight Line (11:11 Press, 2021), Human Tetris (11:11 Press, 2019), Sheep Machine (Black Sun Lit, 2018), Umbilical Hospital (Press 1913, 2017), and The Old Philosopher, winner of the 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Her fiction works include the short story collection A Brief Alphabet of Torture, which won the 2016 FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, and the novel Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016). Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Chicago Review, Glimmer Train, The Baffler, McSweeney’s, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology. Nao’s visual art and drawings have been published in NOON and The Adirondack Review, and her video, digital, and literary installations have been exhibited at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts in Providence, Rhode Island, and at Malmö Konsthall, one of Europe’s largest contemporary art spaces. Her work is celebrated for its fearless formal experimentation, lyrical intensity, and emotional precision, often navigating the landscapes of displacement, intimacy, and the human body. A former Black Mountain Institute fellow, she lives in Iowa City.