published November 2009

Changming Yuan grew up in rural China, authored several books before moving to Canada, and currently teaches writing in Vancouver. Yuan's poems (are to) appear in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry (2009), The Cortland Review, Exquisite Corpse, The London Magazine and nearly 200 other literary publications worldwide; his first full length collection, Chansons of a Chinaman, has recently been released by Leaf Garden Press.

Open Opera

by

april

this solo per­for­mance
of sweet cherry trees

white clus­ters of vow­els
pink cho­rus of assonance

there is no accom­pany
of leafy consonance

except bold inter­nal rhymes
between heart­beats and footsteps