WEBVTT

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"Unasylumed, Unarchived."

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"And these teeth my father
swiped with a rough finger,

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when syllabic pain is what
fractured cannot solve.

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I am imprisoned.

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My hands are no martyrs.

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What did the new China replace?

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Let's revisit the
poplar tree in the form

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of my gentrified
Oakland alleyway.

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I would wrap the body in cotton.

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The whole point in writing
is not to revisit a war zone,

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it's to delight in anonymity,
in the embezzled desires

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of the dead.

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There are no
queens, only angels.

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An upturned collar,
a welted back,

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the rough grace of
my lover's torso.

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Can you show me what hurt is?

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Unplacated skin, or maybe
the moisture from my lips

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pressing into your anger.

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No protest forgiving enough
for public disclosure.

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My hair's just another's,
my breasts carry

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nothing but common exploits.

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Do you breathe because
you feel that is enough?

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Pinch them again.

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Have my shoulders hunched.

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When I'm yours, you rarely
wipe the sweat from my lips.

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The new Chinese,
please, as if this

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is the dish you order
from a takeout menu.

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And what constitutes prayer?

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Teeth, palate, tongue, lips,
thumbs as thick as throat?

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Cull my horrors for
me, my arched palms

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are not strange for you.

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The devastating
bodies beg skyward

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where vapors won't diffuse
through the packaging

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container.

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Our breasts gave
themselves to our hands,

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we could absolve the
sins of our torturers.

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Everything entered through
them, spliced and unspliced,

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and spliced our fingers
for our beloveds.

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Twice, four times again.

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I saw my father go
down the alleyway.

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I saw his feet reach
towards the dead roots.

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I only watched after him, asked
what will become of his life.

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I took the chain of civic
performances from his neck

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and placed it around
my own as if this would

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resolve my body in progress.

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And the porous textures of our
skins are no longer relevant.

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I know he is not set stone.

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His blood won't
gush from his fists.

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What syllabic pain is nothing?

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Say he could drive
into another body,

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an entire blank space drones,
indefinite in its contour.

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I will never speak of returning.

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Adam, you'll step
into the shower,

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pour lukewarm water
over my limbs.

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As a child bathed under
the California skylight,

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I often lost track of time.

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About fractured paradise.

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I will never count
my body as foreign.

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You should know the soil
fate of an excavated languor:

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We do not need to
wash until we freeze.

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Say you turn off the
water on your own.

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What footsteps arched
against a velvety bath mat?

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I'm going by an ash trail.

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I'm implicating my
sexuality by sleeping in

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the home we have
built. From Oakland

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to our fractured
diaspora, must we

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fear being shot from the sky?

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Beloved, our murders would
be knotted in themselves.

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No one can free us but
our fists in exile.

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I'm still swabbing my teeth
with your hot fingers."

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