Ai, RIP

The NY Times reports:

The prominent American poet Ai, whose work — known for its raw power, jagged edges and unflinching examination of violence and despair — stood as a damning indictment of American society, died on March 20 in Stillwater, Okla. She was 62 and lived in Stillwater.

And then there's this extraordinary poem:

I scissor the stem of the red carnation

and set it in a bowl of water.

It floats the way your head would,

if I cut it off.

But what if I tore you apart

for those afternoons

when I was fifteen

and so like a bird of paradise

slaughtered for its feathers.

Even my name suggested wings,

wicker cages, flight.

Come, sit on my lap, you said.

I felt as if I had flown there;

I was weightless.

You were forty and married.

That she was my mother never mattered.

She was a door that opened onto me.