why, after reading a few poems by ocean vuong, did you think
of dramatic images of ceilings collapsing over defenseless children
when his voice was so clear and whispering to you about conversion and fragility.

?

daniela, it’s time to stop dreaming. in mecca, muslims die
because they want to circle the kaaba, and nothing could stop them. what
would make you leave the comfort and the strange beauty you try to wrap yourself in
like a mohair shawl? what makes you think you could let your body die?

?

you like to peel back the bricks. to leave your heart draped
like expensive, shimmering curtains.
you listen to the world. it’s a kind of power-ecstasy.
their hearts move like polygraph needles. the world doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
that feeling when you see crowds singing
and down your spine begin to roll hot clumps
of pleasure.

//

summer will always come
too early, when corporate swings fall silent and you too begin to languish,
like an inflatable boat where you can already see the tired plastic about to split.
yes. on earth we are loved for a little while. the crowds of people where you glimpse your mother
are not hallucinations. it’s all a developing image of collective memory.
an ecstasy of power.

your acts of love are so selfish, daniela.
you slip among them, incognito, under a denim umbrella.
you tore your jeans. you stitched your mouth shut.

you think you’ve kept your innocence, but no.
it’s just the way your body tells you
you’ll always be young.

no, she won’t come bring you warm bread and tea anymore.
like you, sometimes, behind the apartment blocks
there are crowds of people mourning.

and you want a state almost equal to madness.
waiting should be enough.

but no, you try to go back and mend the bodies
crushed by falling ceilings.
why do you keep obsessively writing about summer,
about its blooming rapeseed fields?

?

yes, this summer is a vast ocean.
you are the woman sewing buttons
on the torn clothes of soldiers returning from war.
who dreams summer

?

mama says,
don’t hold your breath —
the sky isn’t listening.
but you do it anyway.
because holding on is the only thing
you learned from the war that made you.

//

you said your heart moves
like the needle of a polygraph.
why won’t you tell the truth?
you lied. all you want
is that kind of extrasensory escape from your own body.
and summer like a giant swing
you can sink into.

you’re here, in a warm primordial ocean, and you’ve learned
to clench your teeth.
to breathe and clench your teeth
as if giving birth to monsters.

when you write, complex areas of your brain light up
like small, flickering cities in the night.

sometimes, at night,
you press your chest against a wall
and see your own future.
no, daniela, she is not part of it.

once, those suddenly silenced crowds
told you you’d be beautiful once you broke.

but you believe they were wrong.
you were much, much more beautiful
before.