a user’s manual
you stand between the memory of the man and a whisper
stonenotes and some forlorn longing in the sky
graffiti decrypts the past in gesture
carry her under the roof, old man
she wrote
you basket shadows and snarling buildings
as the world rises snaggle-toothed in a god intemperate
in the night loss unfolds in the tongue’s lift
all our equestrian hoof-flying sense
what have you done to spin the cackle and run
she asked
enough, enough
you stand beneath the earth that fins the undergrowth
the cadence of language’s tick at the altar
a tap of syntax tunnels in the retelling
shift gut and string the world’s tocking snap
she wrote
you stand near the nightmarket an obdurate Matsu
beside Songshan Ci You Temple’s inordinate merchants
coordinate the shape of bargaining tongue between prayer and dream
you lose change to a self in the dark
she said
enough, enough
you pause between lives and the rickety bridge
record all that unsoundable noise following
red dress and dark paws on the stone, beauty
the irreconcilable space of both of us, sister, both of us
she wrote
a leap and then a dream and our bodies’ mimic
memory comes as swallows1 and gollum hearts
in clay language thumbtacks the wall string by string
enough, enough
you gleam the gawking wildeyed and sure
between the sheets of the day
darkness upon darkness becomes illumination
that magicmaking mic between our legs and the loss
she said
this synapse of grief between our ears
maybe not in this lifetime nor in this city of hot stone
the eyes have it, don’t they
we too have become renao-ness3
she wrote
enough, enough
you lay between the lively and the dawn
the night’ss loss unfolds in the tongue’s lift
another god intemperate in our arms
the creak upon standing up in the turnaway
once we were brave
she said
enough
before we fell into the world
the dust and the detritus of what we were
dark inside the wolf2
1William Maxwell; 2 Margaret Atwood 3熱鬧
for: Wan-lin on our return toward Taiwan
