The Hour of the Rat

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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

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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

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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.

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