Yuneko

A book-length poem about imagination, loneliness and circumstance as told by a blossom concubine in a Palace of snow and ice. The fourth book by William Frank combines lyrical virtuosity with spiraling imagery to create a moving poem of spectacle, sadness and Grace.

What I cannot a blossom thinks.

My books are ashes in the grate.

I write this carelessly and late

and You have had too much to drink...

...I with punishments have learned

to show my fans, hide my music

though these and this will, too, be burned.

I for that resent Your Eunuchs



who come like shadows deep at dawn

to steal my papers, break my brush

as I wake and so are gone

with the comets of their shush.