| "What words can be uttered? You turn just slightly and there it is: the death of your child. It is part symbol, part devil, and in your blind spot all along, until, if you are unlucky, it is completely upon you. Then it is a fierce little country abducting you; it holds you squarely inside itself like a cellar room -- the best boundaires of you are the boundaries of it. Are there windows? Sometimes aren't there windows?"
-People Like That Are the Only People Here |
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| how light this body feels. waking up each morning steadfastly bound to the scratchy burrs of his futon cover.
not lost, tripping in that starry realm some women get pulled in. 'entire arias composing inside her head', this body is not mine, nor this choice, you push it away only to wander in deeper. often, i caught my hands unconsciously clasped over it.
i am empty here, here, and here (spoken while gesturing to the head, the heart, the stomach, in that order). michael says to hold hands and move on. |
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| everything sliding through my hands- the money, the dream, michael.
so carelessly injuring and throwing away this body. i've even thrown away my baby.
i'm so sorry, my baby. i'm sorry your mother and father are such fools. |
| |
| I play a game.
In the car, on the way into the city, I say, "Hannah is getting married."
He nods, picks up on the rules. "She will change her last name."
"No, she will keep it. She'll use a hyphen and take both." It's New Year's Eve and I want to be bold. "I don't think I'll keep mine (I was never a fan)."
Eyes on the road, he says exactly what I want to hear. "That's okay. Just mine will do." |
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| 
2:32am, pages stop flipping, mind is slowing. in this corner cubicle on the nth floor of west library, i'm not afraid to dream aloud (an entire aria inside my head).
you are italian irish swiss and i am only
chinese.
potential dark-eyed children cross forward
safety-gated linoleum floors. brunette little girls with
plaits bound up in hong kong hair bows. boys in
corduroys with stitched green bear patches. a red
flag with a white cross hangs over a bookshelf
completes this portrait:
"loving nuclear family".
in kindergarten, they'll begin to protest
1. the workings of alphabetical order
2. voluntary donations to the parent-teacher-student-association fund
as neither of us have anything to offer in that regard.
(you keep snatching thoughts up inside my head, i think i have it bad for you.) |
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