• I can hear the Vietnam soldiers
    playing ping-pong against my skylight.
    My skin cloistered like a clam's shell,
    Feeling Simic's words float through veins
    and sighed an indigo smoke cloud,
    folding myself in blankets.
    Is there no humanity in jungles?
    It seems more civilized, anyways.
    My judgment is an organ's key.
    Struck once.
    Forgotten.
    Where's my hat, my scarf?
    Shrinkwrapped with bamboo leaves,
    turned white from winter.
    Tell me,
    where on earth
    a poet
    can find
    love?

    Birds attack the windows
    and my skin is frightened worms
    struggling to find rapture.
    The ice bubbles on my view.
    Where is the road home?
    The anxious wolf in me
    sniffs the trees and clambers
    toward a hopeful home
    where warmth is abundant.
    Where is
    the right place
    to love
    another?

    Fingertips taptaptapping on the doorknob,
    impatient yet lingering for entry.
    Those long nails,
    dangerous knives,
    polished red-violet
    in blood
    and shadows.
    Clandestine motives to trick
    an uneasy soul.
    My heart is a rhythmic symphony.
    Is there
    still love
    in fear?

    Love is a rare expenditure,
    too oblivious of its exclusive need.
    Love is a castrated man
    shaking to his knees
    and barking orders.
    Love is a sly, winter gust
    creeping through cracks
    in the door,
    and it sends shivers down my spine.
    Love is a deep-rolling pigeon,
    Reckless yet divine in its glory.