fruit rots off the branches & smears the immaculate

pavement. the pear’s body        fell out of the pear’s body,

then nothing happened       to its body

again.        tell me the one where the thunderstorm wanted

to spare the forest but        forgot: every branch

turned to shrapnel, shrapnel slashed the soles

of our air jordans, our air       jordans’ soles extinguished

every living beetle. for many nights, the night sky opened

her shirt & flashed                us shattered

                                light. when some thing is

broken, we want it to be       whole. when we were

                              apart, we wanted

to stay         like that, one minute longer, just

long enough to recollect

             how much we can love

                                                 things not yet here.

                         the opposite of

object permanence, or something. we’ve sustained enough

                                                    zero-sum games to know

                  my hóng bāo equals                     your 红包’s absence.

we’ve let enough       snakes drown in the swimming pool        to know

a tremor is sometimes a shadow, & a shadow is sometimes

                        a snake. like the snake,   all i want is

a bite of your thigh & to sink     slowly           to the bottom

                                                                  of the pool. instead,

all i get is a claymation remake of the same story,

possibly john 14:10. it’ll be okay. you say,

one hour before

                                            we are, in the wreckage,

the only thing left.

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