an immortal's love song
for Naomi Ong
last night,
I strung stars along a ribbon for you,
& watched
a pomegranate fall,
its clock-hands flailing;
time tempers all things deathly
& time is a melodramatic mistress
of citrine lavender,
crumpled scarlet letters
reluctant slumbering
in teary fingers
over her lap are fate-threads
that binds me to her
a cartographer’s first lesson
in the canals that make up tender bodies
she says I’m a purveyor
of foolish bouquets, their petals
gossamer-thin, in anemic soil
those & these, the objects
of my midnight fevers:
papier-mache dogs
with hearts hanging out of slippery mouths
like lovesick cherubims,
the ones pursued by ravens
amidst a red dawn,
parisian sights are vicious
in their ephemerality,
flashing as dying fireflies do
tenebrosity becomes reckless daylight
then back again
to torpid twilight:
the stargazer who dozes beside me
returns to her unsullied dreamlands
I strung stars along a ribbon for you,
& watched
a pomegranate fall,
its clock-hands flailing;
time tempers all things deathly
& time is a melodramatic mistress
of citrine lavender,
crumpled scarlet letters
reluctant slumbering
in teary fingers
over her lap are fate-threads
that binds me to her
a cartographer’s first lesson
in the canals that make up tender bodies
she says I’m a purveyor
of foolish bouquets, their petals
gossamer-thin, in anemic soil
those & these, the objects
of my midnight fevers:
papier-mache dogs
with hearts hanging out of slippery mouths
like lovesick cherubims,
the ones pursued by ravens
amidst a red dawn,
parisian sights are vicious
in their ephemerality,
flashing as dying fireflies do
tenebrosity becomes reckless daylight
then back again
to torpid twilight:
the stargazer who dozes beside me
returns to her unsullied dreamlands
Painkillers as Mica Flakes
At the end of Main Street is a pharmacy dispensing painkillers as mica flakes. The dinner table teems with tepid hopes; snicker at Lucy in the sky, with her moissanite earrings, snatched from a train station pawnstore. I hope to shut those dreamless eyelids someday, each iris, a frustrating mortal joy rotting as cautionary tales for rebellious cherubs. Let them linger in their unsullied dreamscapes. Every tear shed in awakening is a starry stray, abandoned by the zodiacs that promised them Eden. So consume, without mercy, dear Lucifer. The heavenly edicts are amphetamines for immortals that have never touched the underground. The badgers, the owls, that prey on rabbits, all for comprehending dawnlight & dewdrops on metallic greenhouses. How foolish of Clarice Lane, to wave glowsticks about in catacombs. The poppy fields have forgotten, & so have the snowdrops. But keep your silence. There are no lessons to be found in springtime hallucinations, not with the celestial giant having left for more verdant pastures, nor with the troupes of revelers shot. Thus, in the name of eternal serenity, worldly daughters, remember to ingest painkillers as mica flakes.
About the Author
Willow Kang (16) is a writer from Singapore, where she is studying. Her current preoccupations include taking naps, and taking naps. While not in school, Willow reads a copious amount of fairytales and writes the same way to keep herself sane. Coffee breaks are also on her mind.