a poem by amy meng

To the Modernist Architect


I understand the terror of being remembered.
Beating yourself against night
and still waking human in the morning.

Desire for perfect geometry,
a razing of doubt, lifting up
the vast dream of an architect.

Force of rising line and right angle,
steel and plane and edge like baptism
—clean logic feeding itself.

But maybe the soul unfolds
like morning glories
when the world is easiest,

forgetful of its own fear.
Perhaps lateness, mistake, apology
is all we have to show.

Amy Meng is a graduate of New York University's MFA program. She has been published in various magazines, including the North Dakota Quarterly and Literary Laundry. She was a semi-finalist in the "Discovery" / Boston Review poetry contest. Currently, she serves as a poetry editor for Bodega magazine and teaches creative writing at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

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