A couple of opal irides manifest each time the thought of

asking is mislaid into my mind. They do their devilish

terpsichore dancing around the rifts of my corked brain,

tomorrow whispers, the diaspora of bauhinia petals becomes

my own flesh and blood. You see, my mother would call this

an epiphany: a rinse of lineage, pores for-the-first-time-ever

unencumbered, scorched honeysuckle painting over porcelain

moons and out of my tiresome system. You are the face of exodus

back home, they’ll say, and I will answer in the same forbearing

voice, the anatomy of resounding inure, Don’t you guys miss me

too much! Which is to say, my mind is no longer as prevalent in

its ability to comfortably shrink itself to that skyline any

more. When you are a child you grasp onto the scarcity of the kind

of love you are lucky enough to be fed, a fat zenith of zero with a

propensity for transcendence. Newness, paradox, the searing

blow of obfuscation, refusal for flourishing. Sure, it will all be for

nothing, the opening of veins over tear-stained journals, taciturn

walks, one-time drunken penetration of principles, but right now

there are boughs and boughs carved onto the pages and the some

body in charge of their nurture is myself. Not an open testimony, or a

lexicon, or some etymology of drowned sounds, this is much less

anything else than it is a manifestation of quintessential proclivity, a

fervor, the way nimiety becomes obscene as it rejoices in its own

whims, overflowing out of pockets and drawers and holiday houses

and even our hometown and its population of nine-thousand. Or rather

– this is how I say I love you, eight-hour difference waning its hand-me-down

wounds, curtains drawn, this myriad of sinewed pride hanging and hanging

from my lips.