Jiangsu, 1944

Jiangsu, 1944

     & when I open my eyes

we are leaving. Fleeing east to greet the bleeding

dusk, gone as its tendrils crawl forth. You are

lucky & we move in blankets of bees

how can one mass hold a million

jolts? Two million breaths but not my

mother’s & not the sister’s whose name I wear

& still we ripple into the outskirts. Bodies—

I guess that’s what we became when

they forced pork down my mother’s closed throat. Your

brothers & sisters weren’t lucky like you & we are leaving

again, so I try to close my eyes but end up

pressing the wind into lotus petals.

I seal boxes of books that can never

be read because you need to hurry

& I wonder how that soldier aimed so

slick his bullet danced through my uncle’s

one cheek & clean out the other & somehow

I know we are not going back. I untwist

the waves from my hair. Miss the days

I won’t remember. Wish my aunt would take me b-

ut no, no paper can buy back a revolution.

This time when the harvest moon rises I know

we really are leaving.

I have a ticket past the shore as if

the bodies aren’t dangling underside

the train & off the rails & there

now we are leaving

fast skimming toward sea away from a sun so red

                                                           I close my eyes.

Note: This piece was previously published in the YoungArts 2023 Honorable Mention and Merit Anthology