By Nancy Kang
Published in 16.4
Widow
he is here for a moment, then gone
she stays a little while longer
eating onions with red rims, purple smiles
dreaming of one who slipped on an edge near the river
arms in slow flight, the drunken clothes, the morning light
his cries vibrating, harp strings
a petal tongue, the engine heart
furiously clawing in its tight skin sack for the ledge
lips that turned down and yet up at the sides
like stingray’s wings, now adrift
Their child has gull-gray eyes and furious milk teeth,
hinting longevity, or perhaps latent mischief,
he has, ironically, an attraction to water
Their disconnection will recline
on its side, like a gold sage or blue god,
bored by supplicants in loud, clinging robes,
saliva pooling in the moist tomb of the mouth
only to be drained through well-deep eyes in the night.
Why must our meetings and partings
be such a magnet-dance of polarities
one wet footprint
dries by dawn.
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