The Hour of the Rat
A flower introduced into a mausoleum
does not enliven life,
itself
the flower, aged
into cerement flattened,
irredeemable, rubbed
centuries on into a mural
that resembles stained sky on the ground
does not reproduce
its smile
is inward blood cells laundered
sound, sounds.
the branch from which the flower hangs
The Hour of the Rat
The river was mud, A heron walked across the surface,
I saw it
spiritualizing the tabitha of garbage
This was not the landscape
I demanded to know
by fleeing into a more barren iteration.
I wanted to stand above the rushing inflammation
with my daughter, already an elderly woman,
The river soüled
We could cry and be fed
We could live in the desert forever
you’ll be a toddler then
mysterion, sitting in a room by yourself,
molecules
integrated into the hive of your personality.
You won’t remember My dreams,
the fields the woods
the river in the form of frustration
immature flowers stewing
against the lizardful wall
It was the rain that tormented our sense of deprivation,
turned us into plants
for a second we were rooted
The Hour of the Rat
There was one Asian man in Town
He told a story about standing beneath a blue light bulb
outside a jazz club in rural Missouri
and, looking at his blue skin, thinking,
I look like everyone else—
beneath the light. He cried
He shed being Japanese
by being blue
His mother must have felt
the ancestors pardon
her son’s momentary wish
to be extinct
I met him in the parking lot
bought boots and a machete.
