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King of Song

January 13, 2025
Zhao the emperor wanted prosperity for his people in Chinayet here I sit, dragging joints like origami bones, ready to bombXanax and write poems for my parents, scripted like trigonometricwaves crashing on shore in rhythmic intervals, yin & yang, push andvehemently pulling for MD and dreams of my perfect American wifeumbilically tied to life, Aren’t...

Pastoral Reckoning

January 13, 2025
Red maple leaves form a long-tail coat,hung in the closet of those with the burden of telling a fabled story: the witch, the warrior, the servant.She holds the burden in her lap. Bacterial colonies feed in the wet of her cleaving brain. Petal patternsopen to passing storms: she’s grateful for the self which betrays her,...

Moon Face

January 13, 2025
Communication was painful. The resignation letter was penned in my blood. The bossasked for my final statement before becoming a ripe tomato, swinging from swollen vines.I stood in the field where he’d once come back to me—years after the first punch—to aska favor. In that field, I waited. I waited for rain & I waited...

persimmon season

January 13, 2025
grieve the end of persimmon season—a year without their caramel flesh. january unspools unendingly, sparrowsballistic among the fractured elbows of meadowsweet; the sky melts charcoalto apricot, snow silver & curdling. how can a body withstand this?tape-measuring time by surgeries: colon resections, an ectopic pregnancy,an abortion, a crushed foot. your heart smashes. every good shell youhold—...

Rock-a-Bye-Baby Boogie-Woogie

January 13, 2025
On the twelfth floor of the Belvedere Hotel, I pass a door that says EMPLOYEES ONLY. Through its rectangle of glass reinforced with latticework of wire, I see three small green dumpsters, each stenciled in white CENTURY WASTE. They are piled high with black trash bags. A week’s worth of hotel garbage to be taken...

Valediction

January 13, 2025
Today is all we have. Today was also all we had yesterday, and will be all we have yet tomorrow.How are we supposed to sleep at night, save for  the utter exhaustion of our biodegradable forms?There are philosophies of coming and going toengage in, without actually moving your body.There are economies and expenditures of being to ponder: semiotics...

ANALEMMA

January 13, 2025
The day I turn my back to youto speak, in orderto, in older words and think I never told you apart,we look in a line. Nearlytied to words, half-living, that with each turn changeby half. Like it is Junestill the sun outside turns the pale grass whileyou hide from it.All we scrawled at one another’s...

SHAPES MADE IN A DANCE

January 13, 2025
I copied my restricted lifedown in an imagefrom whose marks clots collect—like knotsunder clouds,one flock of them hawking as low as mistslung along the shoaling waterthat flattens itself over shallow, rock, cove.What’s named’s notknown and, pictured, can’t be negated either. It’s a deadvast place atthe line where water silts and in a tongueof fingers like...

Autocrat

January 13, 2025
The Generals fumble with their instruments.You too, could be a tyrant’s girlfriend. Blessed be stridulation!A leaf might fling me The dark wields its variegated rays of light.The hyena proclaims its innocence.

Mallards

January 13, 2025
I proclaim, I proclaim:The duck is an odious nemesis. This kingdom is made of minnowy echoes.The fern exhales its umbilicus You are inane, dear duck!Your ablutions are filthy water. And your bill, your bill, your bill—It is utterly ridiculous, Failing to contemplate this miasma,These shadowy beams of light!

Ekphrasis for an Alcoholic 

January 13, 2025
This is the seduction of haystacks: sun’s shift melts dismal to beryl, warms to royal blue. A patient person can wait out the worst  with a hot mug of coffee. A mere half-hour  and everything’s new—I’m changing, you say.  Amend: I want to change. You mean time  brings a fresh canvas. Plum to pinot noir,  fruit to ferment. But blue has already...

I look at myself in the mirror after gaining 50 pounds

January 13, 2025
my body is a shameful wonderI’ve spent months hiding from itdashing from mirrors  I touch my hipsand don’t think of lovers         but ratherthe feel of tightness or compressiongrasp my belly            observe an eruptionof darkening dimples I can’t remember a time I lived in my body without apologyfor its breadth   my thighs peeking belowtheir own impatient country    at...