i. 嫦娥 别把新年念成想念 (2022)
You still smile when you sing
closing your eyes to pretend
the world isn’t blinking below isn’t far sometimes
you will sing that song about the falling
gravitas of Earth’s embrace a cold taste of air as you kiss
dirt covered ground sometimes you will scream
happily to yourself
yell “新年快乐!” to hear your mom
to remember warm cigarette smoke and the burn
of 白酒 unraveling can you taste it?
the numb grit of chewing peppercorns changes the humidity of breath
from silence to your lips tingling against a spicy steamed fish
so you mash moon-rock against your throat
coughing to cough up fish bones sometimes you do not breathe
for a moment turning blue against the force of your fist to remember
the stinging warmth of your father’s palm the slap
of shot glasses at the cusp of season it is not your year to push
against the train station currents you can not go home you can
cry to hear the firecrackers but do not lie
in tears you will not be washed by rain you will not
be swallowed
ii. summer without you (2023)
The rumble of finale // the
three tile victory // a carving of bird //
how sour // how strange //
this is // the resonance of heat //
of straw // hat // roadside
tobacco // a teething // sun // Grandfather
three legged // listening
to cicada song //
The red telephone
has not rung // it has rained
a drooling sky // leaking contradictions:
the walnut shelled // time capsule
the cut palm // the underwater wire
// and the long journey home
iii. Time prays for you (2022)
Once, the candy house was not candied,
just pink. Violently pink. The pink of its children, crying
with a madness hinged
on delight. This
was when
the bread still stood,
tall against wistful eyes. When
children weren’t children but
animals; cowering animals, animals that tiptoed
towards stovetop warmths and ovens still simmering
with love. Great love. Love filled
with violence — so saccharine — and tragedy —
so sublime.
This was when time would not go, could not
pray. When the Blind Witch was not blind, just
violent, wistfully violent, a violence
that flinched at the recognition
of fog, storm’s mercy shattering.
That is how she’d beg. Beg
Twilight not to go, not to go
before it told her, told her of
midnights, shattered; seashores, silenced; moments
of grief; encased.
Of deeper
nights, deeper
breaths
in… out, in….
out,