萬里 (10,000 Li)
“Years staining from the inside out.”—Jenny Xie
“There is, you see, no shortage of gain and loss.”—Diana Khoi Nguyen
Your fingers ink the world regardless of station and tributaries
the stains you left behind in your exiting
the turnstile of your voice
the paw marks damp in the earth
the ones followed, ineluctably
an abacus of flight.
Your fingers ink the world newspaper brief
the paper cup of fried chicken grease along the footsteps, ascending
toward a corner of Feng Chia’s cacophonous night of bodies
lit of traffic love and baobao managing thumb grease and lips bright, alight
neon toward our disappearance, hearts and ambition
pen the clatter of porcelain, upended bowls, spattered napkins, keeling sputters
abrasions made right by the sharing of looks over food-stalls and boot'd love
the barking in this negotiated night, animal innards and teen dreams awkward, beibei
luminous in the abacus of flight.
Your fingers ink the world turning, left
the balcony you left behind in your upending
to shift through hickory and honey-comb'd light
to unseat a wobbly head and regain the recumbent, flickering heart
to reclaim the light in the lantern light window
to unease someone alone and carving out a memory, erase
to let the trip disappear completely, an evaporated stain on the lily and lace
the paw marks damp in the earth
the ones dreamed up before let loose late in the afternoon, the lines along the laundry
a man walking in circles in the nude around a box,
the distance we once imagine for the entirety of our life, ineffable.
Our fingers ink the world, the abacus of light
the time it took to cross the ocean from this life to the next
10,000 books and 10,000 words and 10,000 moments and 10,000 chambers of grief
love, the name we shaped with our tongues before departing once and forever stained
the countries we drew upon, the rhymes we spoke, the food we shared, the nights dimpled
unamended and spoken once again from the inside out, we were the gain and the loss
life’s rich demand and two organs, two mouths and two bands of recumbent helix and two words,
the two of us added up into two characters and infinite stories, composed of ink strokes multitudinous and clear
beads of repining fingers over the pinewood that smoked the squid, the ink rending our mouths:
萬里
as the tenderness of the stars falls away.
For: three poets of grief, Jenny Xie, Diana Khoi Nguyen and Wan-lin Yang
