Green Rope in Window Hue Viet Nam
Imperative Mood
Listen. Sit down. Have a glass of
water. Okay? Good. Now lean back
and remember how you got here.
Don’t speak, just think. Go ahead, drink,
wet your whistle. No need to look
sullen. More ice? Here’s a towel.
Wipe your hands and clean the grime off.
Does it cling to your skin, even
now? Remember why. Leave out no
detail. Breathe in, breathe out. Feeling
comfortable? Water still cold?
They say water purifies, but
cold can, while in midleap, flash-freeze
an electron’s quantum bounding.
It erases nothing, cleanses
only to preserve. Please try to
understand. Unfurrow your brow
and drink deeply. I can hear ice
clinking hard against your glass. Your
hand is shaking. You remember.
Don’t you?
Not Even a Wrist of Flesh and Bone
The girl got him a bracelet
for his right arm, already holding
twelve bangles of silver and of gold.
He never wore it, said, instead,
each circle had to come to him
by chance:
the Middle Eastern deli counter man
who’d given him the middle one,
the New York psychic—grabbed his arm
and told him to beware.
They couldn’t just be gifts, what with
their implications of enclosure, continuation.
And so, the brass loop was stashed in his backpack,
the same one he would drop first on her floor.
She never saw what else might be inside
but wondered if, like the circle,
known by many as a magical space,
it held nothing in its center
but air.
