—for my grandmother

it is almost too easy to turn every action into an ellipses these days. nanjing sun has always felt like a drum, the rhythm of the city flush against your sagging skin. beneath your balcony, the dust never settles. neither have you— perhaps that is why the beat of the city rings in your blood. this is the the last place. now: the only place. sometimes it seems like sky here snagged you, held you in a limbo you did not ask for. your children, they are tangencies of your prior life. you dream sometimes they are shooting out away, away, away to infinity, just as the smoke of the funeral drifted into the sky when your love burned. fear is an old friend, a dull friend now but when you open your eyes, you erase these thoughts anyways. the static thrums here, the buzz of television and constant chatter street bartering and yowls the alley cats too agile for your jaded eyes. but at 5 pm, they stretch five stories under the railing, anticipation manifest. you bring out cuts of processed ham, spin the unsharpened edge of a knife in your hand-- what used to be a possibility, a warning-- and hum godless prayers for these cats. 

there are holes everywhere. in your smile. in your bones. 

in this city of cork, the dust always falls; always rises.

Labels: personal, wriiting