Flame-licked wantons chase
Skewered scorpions
And tofu-tossed blood
To the echoes of heroes howling
“Gambei!” (“cheers!”) and a
Smoke stained Huacheng Road.

Like a scribe before the oracle,
I tuck atop hydrant,
Squatting in an unfamiliar scene
And allow this ink to sink atop paper;

An artist, not so much, but a dreamer
With firecrackers for brains
And brains for the scene
And sense of it all –
I could get lost in this madness;
I could fall in love with this madness.

Swollen knee,
          Come the night I fell;
          Rail iron and blood wrought whiskey.

Swollen knee,
          When the light met me ‘fore the tunnel;
          Far from warm, but a frigid tucked.

Swollen knee,
          As the paper bag whispered the other’s wails;
          I’d imagine my mother crying come dawn.

And the once sullen autumn leaves,

Like my once swollen broken knee,
          Rush ahead for my wishes of spring,
          Bloodied, my palm, and in wait for something new.

Cold when covers for
Others and anger come a
Door closed; vitriol.

Cold when covers for
Others and anger come a
Door closed; vitriol.

Strings sing blunder when
I'd wished you were there a cold,
Cold night years prior.

"Will you marry me?”
     whispered her sly slivers of purple,
          prestige and occasional lie five years later.

And had we not been asunder
     that very same altar we’d sought fallen stars on
          several days prior, I’d have said, “no.”

Sure, she’d brought a bounty oranges,
     but could he, if ever, answer with the hand
          that’d waived like the incense before?

He said “yes.”

I felt the end of
Time inside her; fallen and
Knowing eternal.