After Elizabeth Metzger
You love again
. . and I don’t eat anymore.
Desire has split open
. . like a clementine,
thumb and pith,
. . wanting of time, but being the kill
wanting of life,
. . beyond tree.
—
So goes the bowman,
. . stapled against his rib
and goes the old one
. . is kindling, also.
I swallow the bed sheets,
. . they become the sea.
A thorned seed
. . kneels in my sleep
and I would have crushed it,
. . but to turn shells over into shells
like fingers into pins—
. . it helps to grieve
in green
. . to picture a beginning.
—
The first morning always unkeeps:
. . we plead for what we love
to leave what we love.
Once, I began a sad song,
. . Once, you untucked your shirt–
opened the winter.
Tianyi was raised in Hong Kong and is currently based in New York. His work can be found in The Margins and The Interpreter’s House.