burning again in my Asian diaspora, solemn as a coin in a fountain
dreaming of a well. i sleep where slipping into something is more
cloak than adventure… suturing the wound that tomorrow brings
with a thread of hope…. combing the bottom of the sea.
i eat all the hammers that an anvil resents.
i awake on the beach with a blue coconut lodged in my desolate wings..
with so many phantoms i can hardly cross swords
with the moon -
too busy slipping into constant joy piracy
and the palaver of my grim adjustments
to the common explode.

these lights that i’ve knit into black coins are real lights
and the sun knows the darkside of a simple prayer is more like a moth enthrall of a neutral calamity.  
there are no kings where a queen
is stitching harm into a canvas of woe. only the indolent pearls
of our most dire pavilions, marching into flatlands
as comical as a flat spoon.

you have summer on your face but can’t seem to simmer down
to a long pause made of brief encounters with sunshine and moon dander.
you’re always coping with the malignant Always
atoning for imagined sins… but spinning out of orbit
to align yourself with a nether world
of plush toys.

gems spoil in the dark.
and you know this at your core.
when sleep comes easy
you remember your name
like a dimmer switch
forgetting
how to
bright.