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When the river rose that year, we were beside it and ourselves with fear; not that it would do anything to us, mind you—our hopes were much too high for that— but there was always that remote, unacknowledged possibility that we had thrown one stone too many, by the handful, and that by some force of nature, as they called it, it might rain and rain for days, as it had been, with nothing to hold it and the structure back, and with everything to blame, including children on into late summer and all the years ahead, when it would be ours to bear, to do much more with than remember and let it go at that—some mud, some driftwood, some space of sky as a reminder before getting on with the world again; no, the balance was ours to share, and responsibility for rivers had as much to do with anything as rain on the roof and sweet fish for supper, as forests and trembling and berries at sunrise; thus it was, then, that we kept our watch, that we kept our wits about us and all the respect we could muster, sitting in silence, sleeping in shifts, and when the fire died, everyone was there to keep it alive; somehow, though, in the middle of the night, despite our vigils, our dreams, our admonitions, our structure, our people, and all our belongings broke free with a shudder and went drifting away— past the landing, the swing, the anchored cages, down through the haunted rapids, never to be found; when we awoke that morning, the sun was back, the river had receded under our measuring stick, and everything had been astonishingly replaced, including people and pets, the structure intact, but in the solitude of all our faces as we ate, the knowledge was there, of what we all had done, and that everything would never be the same.

I am the type to go to bed with my feet dirty A man calling from a balcony is not to be trusted In 1988, the nation sings a song I can’t understand but I sing it 
because everyone looks at me like a thief and no one likes a thief Algae gather in plastic cups along the Jersey Shore The dull prongs of a fork still count as a weapon I gather plastic cups along the shore and shake them out to use for tea, juice, a home for my toothbrush The pledge of allegiance is a building ledge, an alleged crime, a leg crossed over another leg, a plea gone askew, a glance shared in a room with someone else who looks like you Hundreds of toxic wild boars are roaming across northern Japan and it would be a mistake to identify with them In 1960, my grandmother holds no knife in no tall wheat When washing her feet, my grandmother tells me she spent decades without shoes, wonders if the mud misses her When we look at each other, we also look away, knowingly I am a good daughter and I can repeat this indefinitely without 
taking a breath Often, I call out to myself just to hear an echo, to hear something moving in the walls like a healthy family of rats My mother has been told, repeatedly: “You cannot walk here” Here is a white stone, a white fence, a white seagull, a white jug of milk, a white candle, a white duvet, a white patio, a white bar of soap to wash your mouth out Sometimes I dream in Cantonese and I have no idea what is being said You grow to love what you create, pouring out of your mouth In 1988, my father sees his reflection in the rearview mirror and identifies with the blood moon lighting his way to Atlantic City From a balcony, a man yells at me: “You need some white dick” and I turn into a boar 我 在 广 东 做 梦 My father disappears for weeks and my mother keeps weeding the garden, pulling cigarettes from the splintering tomatoes I will devour I study asymptotes for months and dream in curves — almost but never touching My mother writes in her English diary for night school: “I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him I” and her ESL teacher only gives her a check, so I give her a check plus To be a good daughter means to carry everything with you at all times, the luggage of the past lifted to the mouth When we look at each other, my mother laughs like an overripe tomato on a windowsill In 1989, I spent months assembling a puzzle map of the United States of America and the teacher said, “Good job, Jane” and then louder and slower like a drowning sloth: “Gooooood jooooob, Jane” and I did not touch a single piece Bloody drunk and a blood moon, my father fights with another gambler and jabs at his arm with a dull fork and they both laugh celestially 你 是 一 只 美 丽 的 野 猪 During elementary school, I did not say a single word, not even when called on, and thus the teachers and administrators 
decided I could not speak English because they looked at me Mao Zedong explains math: “In geometry, I just drew a picture of an egg — that was enough geometry for me” My grandfather was jailed by the Red Army sometime between 1966 and 1976 and my mother says: “I saw him cry when I tried to visit. He wanted to eat the bao I made for him” Algae gather, gleaming like jewels, on the head of my 5th grade betta fish Counterrevolutionaries during the Cultural Revolution are likened to “finding a bone inside an egg” I was born, healthy, in the year of the rat The man on the balcony invests in a foldable set of two chairs and one table in eggshell white — mold resistant, perfect for outdoor use 你 不 敢 看 我 I was ten when I willed a rock to fall off a ledge, just by staring at it long enough

Infinite nesting pushes all matter towards emptiness: child-nodes, tree-droppings with a root element of null. None is always included in every cluster of children. Nothing in nothing prepares us. Yet a fresh light was shed on immortality for me climbing the stairs firm foot first. Everything was in the banister: crows on branches, crickets, architects, handsaws and democrats. Red moon at 3 am .

Even city planning. Yesterday, for example, with its unexpected view of posterity draped loosely between high-rises — unlike the composed street raised to stoop level like a stroller. No moon but clearly under some pressure to form one in quick stages, while being careful to avoid what intervenes with commas, speech tags, etc. Architraves pre-everything. So that time, or what’s left of it, prior to displaying its secret life (which wasn’t so secret to begin with) waves everyone and everything away, including the burnished sills and their plants lithographed with evening plus the host of secondary qualities that rush in on the least pretext, a new unit of space, some jazz below, mouths to feed ... wrinkles alchemy prints on studious foreheads. Or indeterminacy. What did Rimbaud know about ageing anyway? — More than you think. Leaving (you might say) a colorful flag without a flagpole, the parade route all but painted over like the history of unopposed takeovers and the real wrinkle is that nothing is there for the taking no matter how it appears. Shuffling off to Buffalo or wherever they go to fill the intemperate, intermediate needs, while the wisps of grass that inevitably push up between cracks look digital and the buses squeeze their passengers to left and right like shifts in basic economic priorities. Have I mentioned noodling, as opposed to “raptures of attention”? The effect without a cause — unless you’re one of those who find that notion empty of meaning — not only in connection to instrumental music (“I wasn’t playing anything I was just noodling”) but phenomena in general, potential as well as kinetic, from Y. Zowl singing “to a small guitar” to our near-absorption in textures, weathers, (invasive) ellipses, sublimation, etc.? To sum up: it’s not that the telegram to Elizabeth Bishop was 
undelivered but that the dead — if not busy licking their wounds — are absorbed with themselves, as we must appear to the perceptive hawks. Dark gray, dark green, beet red all over, but also (hence the notion of collateral damage when it applies) thickness tout court.

in a different version of this I'm the one sitting up in bed while the nurse says deep breaths   listens to my lungs through the cold antenna of her stethoscope   you're the one sitting in a chair in the corner with a half hearted smile plastered to your face in a different version of this we're both in bed   hunched over while two nurses   sisters actually   listen to our lungs   your husband and my wife sit in the corners of the room both of them completely useless in a different version of this I'm in a chair in the corner while my sister sits up in bed   you're the nurse who listens to my sister breathing   you glance at me for an instant and return my uncertain smile in a different version of this I sit up abruptly in bed   I'm breathing deeply   you put your hand on my back and say go back to sleep   you're fine   everything is fine

has been written in mud and butter and barbecue sauce. The walls and the floors used to be gorgeous. The socks off-white and a near match. The quince with fire blight but we get two pints of jelly in the end. Long walks strengthen the back. You with a fever blister and myself with a sty. Eyes have we and we are forever prey to each other’s teeth. The torrents go over us. Thunder has not harmed anyone we know. The river coursing through us is dirty and deep. The left hand protects the rhythm. Watch your head. No fires should be unattended. Especially when wind. Each receives a free swiss army knife. The first few tongues are clearly preparatory. The impression made by yours I carry to my grave. It is just so sad so creepy so beautiful. Bless it. We have so little time to learn, so much... The river courses dirty and deep. Cover the lettuce. Call it a night. O soul. Flow on. Instead.

if i said baby you might think a certain thing but nah. that’s only maybe what i mean, perhaps i’ll say ma & your mind says Cam’ron, women creeping up but i’m a changed man, & that’s not game ma. it’s practice in high school & THOT isn’t out yet. we’re classic Chicago & bustdowns bloom in our mouths. my Ma spits Too $hort & the line i catch the first time is b*tch b*tch b*tch make me rich but Ma puts me on punishment when i whisper Ludacris & tells me sex shouldn’t hurt. i say nothing & Ma lets it go until a few years later when i get becky or brain or top or dome by a white girl & Ma tells me everything i’ve risked for this escapade. i can’t fix my mouth to say but Ma what i got i didn’t ask for

Wipe away tears, Set free your fears: Everything is free. Only the lonely Need much money: Everything is free. Don’t try to bind The love you find: Everyone is free. Your lover’s yours — Surrender force: Everyone is free. The sun melts down, Spreads gold around: Everything is free. The rain is spent Lending flowers scent: Everything is free. The love you live, The life you give: Everything is free.

From the tawny light from the rainy nights from the imagination finding itself and more than itself alone and more than alone at the bottom of the well where the moon lives, can you pull me into December? a lowland of space, perception of space towering of shadows of clouds blown upon clouds over new ground, new made under heavy December footsteps?the only way to live?

I. The Santa Anas, childlike and profound, blanket me; I see the dust stirring the valley and clouding downtown San Bernardino; I feel the sting of your loss. The black oak leaves, brittle, tumbling, crack under my feet. Is your hand touching the dryness of my lips? You sing: "Don't sit, mountain-still, a coyote skull whistling." I tug at the skin on my wrist, trying to peel off the seam, my stubbornness. On Sunday, I wear my only decent dress, gypsy-green. I hear heels scurry around me, Our priest is a hinged tongue, his verse tucking us in. Why can't I focus on anyone's face? II. The winds fly from a canyon's belly into a peasant blouse. A stampede of leaves and twigs rushes by a patch of grass, scraping across a sidewalk and dragging their nails, fierce and defiant as a local poet's words. From the sides of mountains, waterfalls of dust form, and during my pilgrimage, the fate of lip-stained Styrofoam cups will not unnerve me. Not worried about compasses, I'll go by fences guarding abandoned lots, through desperate patches of grass, yellowing, past one-legged billboards of paper and glue. Resting under the shade of bus stops, I'll recite old tales to ward off the haunted and the debris of family floods piling up. When the voices on an updraft emphatically circle like red-tailed hawks, I'll recall the tail of a comet urging you to wrap yourself in its flames and dissolve. Entranced by a burning equal to yours, I'll walk eighty miles, traveling the routes of my childhood candy wrappers. III. In the moisture of a dirt road I traveled, you are the rain that visited the night before. Does your tongue sense the heat of bodies flying in the Santa Anas? Again, I am lost tracing your face, a dry playa, the eyes of clay, a brown maze of upward glances. Are you a creek bridge, a fallen cedar, lodged between sunbaked boulders inviting me to cross? You are the one taking away my fear of being wheeled down a hallway without doors. IV. With twigs in my hair, I was found somewhere near the national forest. Bystanders pulled back their sniffing dogs while I stood, barefoot and tired. When I predicted earthquakes in China, Peru and Cucamonga, California, I baffled my psychiatric ward. After a nurse removed my handout of The Seasons: Winter, wildlife appeared on the hospital grounds. A mule deer's antlers surfaced in the parking lot, weaving among the staff's cars. A coyote leaped into the patients' garden and howled under a security light as if to say: "I am here. Where are you?" A roadrunner scooted across a lot, losing one of its long tail feathers. All this had the staff checking again if their office windows were latched. In my notebook, I drew a coy face with blurry dots for eyes that peer out of a hollow trunk, struck by lightning, charred by fire, with smoke still rising under your vaulted sky. V. Outside my window, the sky is suddenly draped by a hum, a hummingbird's hunger. Her wings wrinkle the sky. Unlike a chickadee too busy and full of seed chatter, the hummingbird puffs up the air, feeding like a storm, a redness, a sideway rocket past the world's ear. That spark reminds me of you. Thin-rooted, lingering too long, absorbed in window reveries, I'll be released. Here, the soil is moist, sponge-like, storing. Worms surface, digesting their way up. I, too, am ready for the driving winds of another season.