The Burning
“…I’ve lived without names…”
-Stephen Kuusisto
Off a seashore in Russia I run, laughing
at the mystery of movement in the form
of water, laughing at my father with sand
on his face who will one day die.
Or imagine for a minute a locomotive
full of people, rocking with the motion
of a vintage sorrow, head bowing as if
time has beaten them. In my winter season
I think of monks in Penang who sit without
sound for weeks. How they live inside silence.
The silence is alive. The ringing of a bell
is an intricate acorn; my soul hits the ground
when it falls. The apple for all its perfection
will never change. The seed I swallow fashions
a knot in my throat, the fiber of the peel winds
like a staircase leading me down. I look
at my teeth-marks in fruit, in flesh
like a message, an erotic code deciphered
by tearing and biting down. I want to keep
this braille, this transcript of my soul:
My body is a vessel of wanting.
My body is a vessel of fury.
My body is a vessel of apology.
I am the thread & the damage the thread made after the mending.
tina chang
