"From Holes We Emerged, And Into Holes We Shall Return" by Ally Ang

From Holes We Emerged, And Into Holes We Shall Return

I put my fingers inside the moon
like a mouth, to see how wide
I can spread it open. Sex is just a series 
of tubes, a friend told me once. 
Is a tube an inside out hole,
or two holes holding hands?

My love and I perched 
on opposite ends of the couch,
toes interlaced. Have you ever
craved someone so desperately, 
you wished God would rend
a new hole in you, just 
to fit their perfect hands
into a place no one else 

has touched? Three decades ago, 
the doctors sliced a hole 
into my mother and yanked 
me out, silent and still, 
while she floated somewhere
above the pain, a curtain
bisecting her body. The first
of many violences
I didn’t mean to inflict, 
but did anyway. I’ve never 
asked to see the scar. 

I used to pay strangers
to puncture holes in me 
and fill them with metal—
eyebrow, nipples, septum—
obsessed with adornment, 
the breakage of skin. I thought
that if I asked for pain, 
nothing could hurt me. Eventually, 
the rings fell out and the body 
refleshed, impenetrable 
once again. Some holes 

are ephemeral; others, I will take 
to the grave. Sinkhole, peephole,
manhole, k-hole, asshole,
blowhole, gloryhole, God-shaped
hole in my heart. I’m no longer looking

to fill or be filled. Let me stay
holy as the world moves through me. 
It’s not the hole that empties me.
It’s the rupture I crave.




Originally published in Split Lip

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Ally Ang is the author of Let the Moon Wobble (Alice James Books 2025). A National Endowment for the Arts fellow and MacDowell fellow, Ally’s work has appeared in The Rumpus, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Seattle Met, and elsewhere. They co-host Other People’s Poems, a poetry open mic and reading series in Seattle.

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