Exit Wound

Guangzhou, China. Cultural Revolution, 1967

She tells him she was born pretty in red,
tender despite. Pure
white parchment, you almost saw ’46
instead of ’32. He asks how long she’s been doing this. Sharpens her
silence clean as an arrow—waits. Sorry,
she says. I don’t know what you mean. All I’m saying—
he stills, smiles. Baobei. If I was you, I would’ve given
up the script long ago.

*

This is the scene where she leaves. She swaddles a heartbeat under
hazy mint satin, ignores the bullet blooming between brother’s teeth.
She forgets to tell her lover the moon looks
good weeping tonight, to ask him to dance once
it’s all over. It’s heavy work & heavier hands, heavier
bodies, lighter mouths. These days a crimson guard bets a rice bowl
on a life worth burning, swears on his own with fingers
not his, bright blue, slant. This is the scene where the narrator is only joking:
She does not leave. No, she has gone.

*

Aim skyward & you will remember         there is no hope here.
You will be everything & more: the director, the stunt         double, the corpse.
Stupid girl, you will know everything, run to nothing but your own         willing hands.