Spell to Find Family by Chen Chen Lyrics

for Kundiman

I thirst for the starlight
that opens elephant skin.
I thirst for the raven

conjugated into riven
by summer storm.
My job is to trick adults

into knowing they have
hearts. My heart whose
irregular plural form is

Hermes. My Hermes
whose mouths are wings
& thieves, begging

the moon for a flood
of wolves, the reddest
honey. My job is to trick
myself into believing
there are new ways
to find impossible honey.

For I do not know all the faces
of my family, on this earth.
Perhaps it will take a lifetime

(or five) to discover every
sister, brother. Heartbeat
elephantine, serpentine,

opposite of saturnine.
I drive in the downpour,
the road conjugated

into uproar, by hearts
I do not know.
By the guttural & gargantuan

highway lion. The 18-wheeler
whose shawl of mist is a mane
of newborn grandmothers.