Mai Der Vang is the author of three poetry collections: Yellow Rain, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and an American Book Award; Afterland, winner of the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets; and Primordial (Graywolf, 2025). She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State.

Tame External Features Come Birthing Endangered in a Cage

by Mai Der Vang

That you were captured    then kept
               inside a cage              until you died.

      It was a Hmong villager     who roped
you with dogs         on the chase


brought you      to the zoo in Lak Xao.
People on couch
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