Chris Kobylinsky

After Du Fu

The country tears itself apart.
Words spill in wounds on the street.
Though scarred, though sheened with grease,
the mountains and the rivers live on—
no one but the peony bows their heads.
All hearts stuck in text messages.
Inside the library, between the stacks,
only dust circulates, and my temples,
like ruins, turn as gray as ash.

Chris Kobylinsky's poetry has previously appeared in Poor Yorick Literary Journal, Incessant Pipe, and Poetry Quarterly. He currently lives in New England.