night has come
night has come.
make the moon
align with overhead cables.
prod the moon
with the branches of bare trees.
how else does flesh into flesh merge?
how else to turn the subconscious into a distant jewel?
each of us is bruised pulp in this city.
we wear our linings inside out,
hold ourselves like a flashlight under the chin.
some tie their truth to pigeons for truth
to circle back at them in the sky.
some find a face to feel in the dark.
some gather around a dying bird outside a phone store.
there are those at the end of their tether,
and those who are about to burst open,
and those who are going under.
there are ashes enclosed by chalk the morning after.
there’s a new year bathed clean like a newborn,
a sense of renewal pinned down by the couplets,
and a tacit promise of days golden
like the bundles of yuanbao at Yonghegong.
