Shin Yu Pai

For James Kim (1971 — 2006) it could have happened to any of us a wrong turn down a logging road tires tunneled into snow a man’s undying love for his children moves satellites maps aerial images eighteen care packages dropped over 16 miles of the Siskiyou, bearing handwritten notes from a father to his son the signs you left for those who came after you a red t-shirt a wool sock, a child’s blue skirt layers of a life, stripped down to a family’s fate — the weight of being unseen — to travel a path back to what you knew at birth, the warmth of being held close brought home

in the shooter’s face, she recognizes her sibling’s coarse unforgiving hair, his yellow skin, & vacant stare, the year her brother broke down, she was still in high school, seventeen — w/ a taste for cutting not class but hands & arms any outlet to escape this “community” denies illness, a family reacts — against crying out loud let it be some other Asian in the shooter’s face, I recognize my sibling’s coarse unforgiving hair, his yellow skin, & vacant stare, the year my brother broke down, I was still in high school, seventeen — w/ a taste for cutting not class but hands & arms any outlet to escape this “community” denies illness, a family reacts — against crying out loud let it be some other Asian

At Pearl Street station, two brown-skinned men in painter’s pants stand out in a sea of white I am just one more face sticking out in a crowd & it is my privilege that prevents me from understanding why the workers want to know how to buy one-way trips the automated machine sells only one roundtrip fee, back to where you came from he isn’t asking me for change says it clear enough so that there can be no mistake Sí. Yo sé. But a dollar fifty is a lot of money.

From the remains of his cremation, the monks recovered the seat of Thich Quang Duc’s consciousness — a bloodless protest to awaken the heart of the oppressor offered at the crossing of Phanh Dinh Phung & Le Van Duyet doused in gasoline & immolated by 4-meter flames the orange-robed arhat folded in the stillness of full lotus his body withering his crown blackening his flesh charring his corpse collapsing his heart refusing to burn his heart refusing to burn his heart refusing to burn