Down
Down seven steps
Seven depths of dream
to flypapered halls
where you meet
the man with the flagon
He fills vials of venom
One you must drink
for it will take you
through Mandelbrot sets of madness
Up, up, and through
to the white dwarf
of bright morning
Asymmetry by K-Ming Chang
This, by K-Ming Chang, in The Jellyfish Review.
Asymmetry
I cut my mother’s hair every month since her hands went wild. They’re rabid, boomeranging around the room, returning every touch twice as hard, slapping her face when she’s asleep, ambushing mosquitoes, crawling under the sofa like rodents. I cut her hair shorter in the front than in the back. She likes asymmetry, the unevenness of things. She claims that’s why she fell in love with my father. He had one eye that was double-lidded and one that was single-lidded, one smaller than the other, which my mother called long-feng yan. Dragon-phoenix eyes. A sign of good luck. Eyes like coins, like currency, spending themselves empty. Every month, I spray my mother’s hair from the roots to the tips, trace the cowlick on her scalp, trim away the bleached-brittle ends. Unlike her, I prefer symmetry. I cut my own hair in a bob so abrupt that my friends call me…
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My sin
It began when I wanted him to have a two hundred dollar rocking horse. Or, when she stopped her crying as I sang to her about that bear that went over the mountain. The piggybacks to bed, the too-long stories, the artful tickling.
My ignorance, my wilfulness, my shame.
Night shift
This is wee,
the hour.
I play coy
with sleep,
thinking
that if
I ignore it
and feign
that I am
fighting it,
it will engulf me
out of spite.
But no.
Its navigator
plies me
with pages
from afternoon fades,
jukes in studied loops.
Sheep have gone out of style,
I think.
A little scare
I had an ambulance ride last night, due to a sudden heart issue.
It turned out to be a wise decision, because I had to be cardioverted electronically.
Before that, they told me they were going to inject a drug that would stop my heart, “make me feel very bad”, and would then restore it to its correct rhythm. It did everything but the latter.
Also, I was given a more defined diagnosis as to what’s wrong, and was referred to a new (and hopefully better) cardiologist.
Pillow talk
When you lay down,
tears no longer fall,
but they pool
in the cups of your eyes.
Sky pilot
Lay prone
in the hammock of home.
No drink, no smoke, no drug.
Let the blue loom of the sky
seep its dye, so sterile, so dope.
Great is its storied fresco.
Rest easy that it waits for you.
Grown up
Kid I was
when Dad got my nose
showed how to take your thumb apart
Oh, and the trick
with the hats and cigarette butts
How to worm a hook
Bought a poetry book
Must’ve seen my look
Told me I must be a man
Face the bullies
Have a plan
Double up that fist
Let ‘em have it!
Yeah
Dust bunnies
Taken-
the combings of years,
of minutes and seconds.
Sift and sieve,
this sultry eve.
What’s fallen,
plasmic,
into dream hands,
begs of wonder,
of worship,
and tastes
of regret and forgiveness.
Itchy & scratchy
Burdock socks
are what I have,
a-clinging to my sleepy feet.
Aremyfeetofftheground 