Yongyu Chen
Ferry now, clean break. Mountains all four sides
of the bay, ahead that one
is the cow’s back.
Earlier in my life I was not protected. Then,
rain protected me. Sky darkened, wind rose above the subway’s
entrance & drew up walls of leaves. I was ushered
into the even through it shadows & air sealed behind me. This was
the first shell. The closing shell,
the world-hurting shell, the wet branches easing as I walked through. Then,
after the time of the rain, it was the time
of mountains. A mountain of sulfur. I climbed it until
the smell faded, a shrine—I did not pray there but looked at the two women
dusting the Buddha’s head with their wildflowers. They protected me.
Summer’s shell opened. As I arrived the coastal city softened in a week of rain, oily
crabskin gleaming beneath the shell. Snails on the walls. I stayed
inside. From the bedroom, saw the black hill overlaid with cloud’s
fray-edge. It was
a small apartment, filling quickly.
Nothing protected me. I turned
away to write. Someone sat next to me. If I turned away fast enough I could write
one word. And then, now,
now I feel it is becoming, it is almost, the time of the butterflies.
My head leans toward the edge
of the mattress. There, between it & the wall, cold air circulates. As
I think I sleep I am awake. My hand holds the bedframe. My hair, soothed
in its lesions,
is part of the butterfly.
A wing of powder stretched to the brink. That is a face, capable of expressions.
Sleep, butterfly. Only sleep helps.
Sleep is part of the smile.
Truant
Even a word gains resonance.
In my vision I died.
In the rain’s middle, night turning.
Maxila, Premaxila, Sacrum.
Hilda, Frances, Ezra.
Remember, I am writing for you, I am writing your life.
I became the astronomer’s daughter.
Backdrawn American icewater. Resonant
in the slipstream.
There is a right time to speak. The felt ends of the lips do
gather static. What do you want?
A stalactite with its heart-sac. A friend in the cave. A cord to cut.
One by one, small hoofprints to the side of the paved path, unrolling.
I speak
for them. For M,
for instance, there is no word. Words surround it. It is
a question. Sun reveals leaves in London.
And they sit for hours discussing it.
He sees another kind of life. Sees it
in the non-stillness of its attributes. Sees the storm in the feeble geraniums.
Without moving he dives.
Brush, go the petals.
Even a word like formless, like without form gains resonance.
The minotaur, seated, aslant in his narrow seat—it breaks. Sleep comes.
The calm light reveals the paths of blood under his skin. He has
no heart.
I looked everywhere.
No heart.