Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
Poem in Memory of a House
Homes were going up all over the hillside.
You’d turn your back for a second
and pop! up went a new house.
Endless columns of wood like a scene
of the crucifixion. Real estate agents
armed with walkie-talkies barking at
half-finished meadows, driveways
wet and congealing. Nothing could
stop them. They had the noble
look of Xerxes lashing the sea.
Tung-Hui Hu is a PhD student in the architecture program at the University of California Berkeley. His first collection of poems, The Book of Motion, is due out this fall from the University of Georgia Press. He has also contributed recently to _The Ontario Review. _(updated 6/2003)