O Bed-God of Sickness

Khaty Xiong

the bed-ripe heart & brain you harbor

has no sad theories — no bedtime stories left

I hold the scriptures in the waning light

& the view of your bed-body bleeds small

& you insist the roaming human has no limits —

whose error & insect approving — then our language

unassailing — fleshed & assuaged!

This automated heirloom & torpor …

the morning sun a missing thing —

the night we can never fully come out of