Mr. Darcy (These men can be collected)

← v15n1, Spring 2016

These men can be collected in a cup or a

shovel but I cannot pick each out except

by the handful they each dress better have

nice sweaters come with tags that say

Do Not Remove they move everywhere they are

a catalog that keeps coming in the mail each

only slightly different from the last this

manuscript is named Man 4 moon

sounds like man the shadow on my desk is not

mine my light is my heart that hurts from

igniting the microphone I talk into an ear

but the ear is not an ear I can whisper

never respond never spend on me why do

we fall in love with an ideal someone

who is not even real we teach our children

to have an imagination then others shun

desire literature identity

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang is the author of four books of poetry including Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), and The Boss (McSweeney’s, 2013), which won the PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award. Her picture book, Is Mommy? (Beach Lane Books, 2015) was illustrated by Marla Frazee and was named a New York Times Notable Children’s Book of 2015 . She was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and teaches poetry at Chapman University and the Orange County School of the Arts.