Undone

 

 

Cun character:

give texture to form.

 

Your text dances

breathes space into lines

bindings without      closer

 

a diastolic iamb

March comes dun   wedding

dun tyger and lamb

 

loose your brush strokes

and brush thumbed out   fingers

 

lose horse hair fine

lines, riddled and   raising

 

fresh flesh prickled  

pickled radishes

sit in the sun

 

red moons waxing

 

devouring energies

cyclic and salty,

umeboshi and pàocài:

 

 

both bleed white rice red.

 

 

 

 

 

Salted Static

 

  一

 

Tissue ply cotton in

vermillion cleaves ripples against

 

milk-skin floating in the glass

between frosted panes:

 

butterfly rafts lighting up dark

river paths.

 

   二    

 

Each of three million

infinitesimal hairs rises to mete

a shuffled carpet-kiss,

 

ears ringed raw

with stuck thick stealth

and, at a touch, igniting flesh:

 

infight love-lined armistice.

 

 

 

 

Shadow Puppets

 

 

                                                                   She already spun

                                                                     in color: red, green,

                                                                             gold.

               His   

           headdress heavier        

     than torso,  a mask more                       Layers of delicate

garuda than prince:                                            ox skin tool-

      a painted face and groping jaw                  ed with fringe

cry black lashed tears.                                her feathered partridge crown

                                                                   more lithe           

Limbs lifted in pain                                                    steps

                                                                   ahead

-ful, supplication down.         

                                                                   her missing

 

     One knee   

          raised the other floor-                      mouth suggests a knowing

 

                                            facing             sadness

           

           

           

                                   Both                                       

                                       wind-winged            with responsibility

                                               birds too large     for flight.

 

 

 

 

 

Ssssssssss

 

 

 

 — Mississippi sticky southern cypress rattle

and slough cicada licks of light hint leaves

extending into sense scent descending an

undulating muscle scales calculate bark and

branches scratching in passing reptile bright

skin curves between day and night 二 Breath

sneaks out aspirating laze into distinct idiom

settle and play attenuate to dust everything

gets grown over and about 三 Banyan roots

through rock 四 The nose disappears and

words curl up adders in the back of your

throat just behind your epiglottis down

around the

bend the tongue tip forced and out a flat

cadence caresses whisper and rasp.

 

 

 

 

A Ph.D. student at the University of Georgia, Julia Anjard Maher lives in balmy Athens, Georgia where she is working on her first book-length collection: Four Streams : 四 川. These pieces spring from her time living, working and reading in Sichuan, China. Her poems are forthcoming from RealPoetik magazine.