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| Rapids Stars As a youth in the village I remember the elder's stories how the night sky is a waterway and the moon bends her phosphorescing fingers over the gunwhale moon she plants water lilies up there wet and coruscating ululating with soprano bones until dawn comes where they close their throats Threading Mount Gelandanong's glacial tears Nazirah asleep on the deck light beads from you upwards in constellations that populate the night one exposed arm spills a milky way beneath your head the other comforting a belly teeming with our sparks cooking up to spread petals to phosphoresce |
Shigu We moor under Cloud Mountain and ascend a camellia processional camphor boughs goad us with sting-noses hands soothe rhododendrons giddy with ants and dew One ancient morning Da Yu grew jealous of losing his fish to foreign frypans he plunked down this peak, this fang and sent the water homeward Suddenly your anxious hands surround me steadying me, the imperial litter and the debutante I satchel inside Ekimi, shhh, I may carry the world itself but I am still a nurse who recalls how to walk Up here we squander breath like drunken minstrels on parapets Sichuan peppers smarting our tongues Look! you can just see the pagodas of Wuhan sampans and the drowsying cows The light gains ground like a thousand horses the words we can never overtake a bridge appears dangled from iron rings and chattering through its gates comes a tumble of red-scarved children someday our children oh Ekimi, can't we set a mountain in this place divert ourselves much much too long
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