Two Lines and 林
“If it is so difficult to begin, imagine
what it will be to end—“--Louise Glück
You settle into the grass and your body kneels apart, line by line vowels only
parse by parse the trace you saw in the mirror earlier in the morning, syllable
and rhyme and the brushstroke a teacher once commanded clutching a wrist and two fingers
life plucked down on rice paper, on your forehead now, two lines in the swirl of time and dark ink
trees, someone’s word’s and smoke on the hill, 林
the rivers of age fingered into a bend by the cracking of the skin’s dendrochronology
syllables she once traced as rivulets of time on another’s skin, now
into two with her tongue and the abracadabra she knew not yet the meaning of
or a simple hurt
"Awake, you’re an old man whose skin is parchment folded
yet
asleep you are a child whose peace haunts
so that I cannot, undress me."
up look tracing as needle and thread, bucket lass and pivot, the demarcations
death comes predatorily like the algebra of language
the pine trees sway like horsehair fingered by a reckless learner, 樹
the aunties and uncles beside parents, grandmother and the children and the derange森林
the forest of lives, a ghost branch clatters in the underbrush killing generationally
kindling
the poem that burns away the undergrowth of the dried words you placed on the forehead
raucous, awkward and jingling, sister
the body’s swoosh so difficult to begin or unlearn
black tension wire, sun-stiffened serpents run for higher ground
steel fuselage rabbiting the hutch above the curvature of spun light
and the stripes of your pulled-over-your-head moment, field-plowed red suffusing the pale intent
that quivers in frown or opens mouth-wife with a laugh or thought
recognize a thought scattered as tributary as the power lines mentioned above shaping
life made us taxable, love made us intractable and bewildered
you softened in the bathroom’s obdurate light, the pine branch pregnant under sparrows’ weight
a manufactured plastic swaying
jet-fuel calligraphy racing beneath the belly of the summer's solstice
have you ever wondered why
as the afternoon pulls its shades slowly down and the mustard jar impossibly night
everything loosens but the lids and joints
the groves of your face or the barrows of her words, divesting
does it even matter, much longer
excavating, pulled apart like the village alleys and buildings along Three Gorges or Don Valley
the sky meter-marked in red
the history books warred over such things
words written as such, Qing dynasty carvings forgotten in the underbrush
in hope they would be remembered
will you and me
set adrift, the stars un-anchor'd in their great swerve and traducing
these small hyenas of locution
diphthongs when read, grass stains on butts and thighs, thumb nail when read
were the history books written
was it possible to sleep in the cove of your grandfather’s bunk, vocabulary riding high the sea
was the world aligned to meet the breach as you pulled your knees up and out
the cavern of a white shirt bespoke by a Hong Kong tailer, the failing breath
the great spin of the world in the Flowing Lake over the shoulder of Taitung
river this, toss that, a sibilant sowed up by a corner vendor’s bark
calling her food to the customers as if a prayer in Night Market
Beitou, Beitou, milk-fish
the scar that mapped the territory between your pelvis and heartbeat
the small gap your forelock governed over, your ear
the word, 長城, inked on your wrist, a country and the steep climb in a stanza left in bed
the scurrying of the wind, those tiny rodent steps, beckoning
the sea but a throw away when turning
the world has such small hands that sleep neatly in our mouths
the world has such long nails that mark an old man’s forehead and cruch
in between the silence and the noise
language’s batter and battle run in
what will it be to end, hard
we were all ocean and tree carcass breaking wide
doxology long-sung upon our knees as we learned
speech, and
we plunged leeward as the poems went missing and everything we imagined
plunked and opened and our bodies missed
our songs forever restless falling feverish eternal toward the Eastern emerald sea
