Hunan
Teeth, the bones I clean,
bite into this pillow.
This bed is not mine,
it is perhaps my late grandfather’s;
or just another metaphor
left in this parcel of land
that could have belonged
to my grandfather.
Inside my eyelids:
two melting balls of chocolate.
Outside my eyelids:
the fields and its bones of rice
seen through the window.
Long ago my grandfather’s son left
for some exodusted nation
and so did I.
Here, the smell is unbearable
and the eyes of my eyes forget themselves
amidst fog, amidst my grandfather’s body
shaped in a certain way when he boils long long noodles.
The chickens sleep and don’t judge us anymore.
They wait, as I do too.
the makings of blood
Under this streetlight you will watch
eight million photons dissect this puddle
until its basic formula is revealed.
From it derives a time without water
when we had held a drop of rain
holier than blood drying
on the side of a temple, a priest
chanting prayers for rain,
holding up a human heart
for the children to see.
From it derives a time without water,
when a hundred thousand trucks
drove down to southern California
with water in their metal wombs.
Let yourself fall in love with it again,
because we are nothing
but memories of the rain.
Look at this puddle one more time,
and watch the rubber wheels of a car
roll through it, blowing out
eight million photons
and the acrid smell of gasoline.
These are the facts of the puddle,
its chemical composition and acidity,
the bottom of little boots that splash them,
and the fingerprints they accumulate.