furcula

by Teresa Mei Chuc

these tiny bones
sternum
clavicle
coracoid
scapula

the shape
of a wish

coming
together

to resist
wing stroke

the force
of flight
that would

shatter
any breast

and beneath
it the beating
heart

Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Saigon, Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. under political asylum with her mother and brother shortly after the Vietnam War while her father remained in a Vietcong “reeducation” camp for nine years. Her poetry appears in journals such as EarthSpeak Magazine, Hypothetical Review, Kyoto Journal, The Prose-Poem Project, The National Poetry Review, Rattle, Verse Daily and in anthologies such as New Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press, 2010), With Our Eyes Open: Poems of the New American Century (West End Press, 2014), and Mo’ Joe (Beatlick Press, 2014). Red Thread is her first full-length collection of poetry.