ting-hua, or “heeding the words.”

the peels of an egg hard-boiled and cracked
on the counter like all of the choices we make. my fingers
an egg tooth this afternoon an eggshell quiet
the wind from a street past Rockwell is the rocking cocoon
of the sea, or the whisper in an ear on a train

obedience is between two hands,
even the ones that seem totally apolitical and personal
but with political implications, sliding down the handrail,
sliding and catching themselves

ask me to stand, arms wide open.
ask
who’s in the room,

and count the number of stars tattooed on a wrist,
meant to overcome character inadequacies
through their broad texture and character

tell me you hope you never get tired of waiting for the world
to come to its senses
old planets can’t help obedience; ever elliptical.

and especially the limits within which these evolve
like our mitochondria always coming from our mothers

and because we have been fed our words we speak like strangers
and it’s actually ok; the little things the everyday interactions
that get under the skin are largely systemic. or like courtship,
the structure to achieve a specific outcome. Science vs. Romance.
celestial bodies, horizontal—
as in orbit.
I profess ignorance but ask questions.
I just can’t read
the script I was given to follow.

just because you squeeze our hands
while trying to pull us up,

what can be trivial to some
are the rules of the game.

words “a totality of oppressions,”
systematically based, entwined, all needing to be eliminated
and creating new (liberating) ones.

the remaining umbilical.

checking a box on an intake form, you probably only know the label:
the capacity to jump 18 inches.
teaching someone to think only one way, they will find their own back door.

write things down. take record. so these things
can once again exist, if only to be folded, slapped
shut, tossed aside, or re-opened

together the pieces sound hard, definitive. like breathing.

a node choked off so the branch can reach for light.

spending the rest of the afternoon sitting stonefaced on the stoop
in a pale blue smock, a Zuihitsu in a tea mug straight up, on the rocks

a language that sits foreign in the bones

apartments
for rent in an abandoned building.

existential as a y-intercept
regardless of slope.

the scapular barre perfectly perpendicular to the central channel,
trying so hard to have the arms around us like a cup of water

the body sinks as if always seeking lowest ground.

too much to ask for civility in this nation-state:
we are not its first inhabitants so must
respect what already exists, the condition of soil,
what already rests. waiting to be reaped.

I accept the abysmal. I just don’t want to be a dock,
a jumping-off point.

a curb taken too fast has punctured my dantien
breathing has become one minute, has become ten. there
should be no changing constants, no shadows cast against the brick
each weekend has become one minute, at the corner of what’s the point street

road construction ahead
feels like a negative slope
feels like for every five units of m, we lose one unit of change

“show me the action plan,” says the director of whatever. “we need budgets,
outputs, more freshly sharpened pencils.”

the oil of an orange under the nail.
squeezing.