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Barbie Chang

Page 3

by Victoria Chang

3

  There you are on your back sleeping

  looking dead I now dread the long day

  filled with people I no longer care for I am

  your pupil now you tell me what to study

  here there are no rejections no Mello Roos

  no asters with their clusters of flowers

  hiding weeds no new poets taking selfies

  or being blessed they fade more each day

  out of your pupil I see a room as large

  as a ruby and that is your world the whole

  of it how I love what you see the part the

  particle of a partitioned place one yet in

  need of reform a world where others’ words

  can yet burn into you like a branding iron

  4

  The scientific has gone what’s left are fires

  that can’t be packaged that whisk my love

  into threads I cannot collect or control

  frequencies here have no waveform just

  dotted lines everything has excavated

  itself and everything has altered in the way

  water in a pool breaks up light into pieces in

  the way the light is tranced into approximations

  and deviations into eyeless swirls that never

  fix I have borne witness to this giant this

  love for you that never leaves that burrows

  laterally and downward that layers and

  imprints on my skin the way goggles leave a

  mark long after I have taken them off

  5

  When you wake your feet will be longer

  you will be interested in the moles and

  the dark holes in the pumpkin’s face

  you will point and laugh at the citrus

  comedy of its body you will scream when

  I take a rake away stamp your heels as if

  removing snow no no no no I am afraid of

  your moods your streaks I cannot stack or

  break I am afraid of the next minute the

  atomic equivalent of death the endless

  present tense I approach you as I do a

  cigarette butt at the park I am suspicious of

  you handle you by the burnt out bits the

  side untouched by your sucking lips

  6

  Suddenly your face resembles mine but

  how fast the look is swallowed into the

  celestial space and your face is yours again

  how terribly I want to inhabit your face

  to dive into its cells to fold into your

  gossamer skin how terribly I want to be the

  side upon which you depend the part that

  is only used to hold you up if you’d kiss me

  you’d know the slum of my skin twisted with

  weeds and wilderness old skin that has tried

  to fly but cannot fly look there it is again

  a look I know how quickly it tangents like

  a small fish into a rock there are dangers

  in the sea there is sincerity in the sea

  7

  When you fall onto the floor your cry

  sounds like a lightbulb as it pulses on

  off on off your wail sticks to me I fail to

  hear the people dying or the dog crying or

  the seizures that light up bodies you are my

  seizure a blowtorch that spouts fire then

  laughter then fire you take me by force you

  are a sudden occurrence I ask the sky for

  help but it just gives me the next rain I ask

  the rain for help it just gives me the square

  root of rain which is just more rain I ask

  the fig tree for help but it just gives me little

  brown pamphlets when I ask the tree which

  way it just points in every direction

  8

  Someone says it is difficult to write poems

  that are both domestic and ambitious if your

  small head is my earth if I have concerns only

  for the internal affairs of your body then how

  am I domestic our home has more than four

  sides there are wars in rooms furniture in

  formation if I am your domestic servant why is

  it assumed we are domestic that we are small

  and petty that we are controllable unwild you

  betray me over and over I play you and prey

  on you this is not domestic there is no floral

  sofa no salad plate no bingo hall just falling

  bodies the trouble with falling bodies is

  someone needs to catch them

  9

  I must tell you something there were six

  lights in a circle a large wreath of heat that

  tried to drag open my eyes I woke up coughing

  but the lights were missing it was sudden

  there was no heartbeat an extra chromosome

  my boy let the suction take it turn its body

  into a latticework of tissue lying on the table

  I remembered the man helping his boy with

  cerebral palsy walk the boy’s legs bent stiff as

  if climbing a ladder to God there must be a

  God only God makes me listen this way I take

  my quill and write God a note but there are no

  more words they have flown beyond the lights

  all the letters shaped like question marks

  10

  You are no longer fictional no longer the

  other side of a cliff you are my phantom

  limb you glean even when gone you are

  a sensation an illusion a missing you are

  earthbound titanic you make me itch and

  burn and ache when you touch the flower’s

  thorn my own hand explodes when your

  head goes underwater my sight is taken by

  white only when I am alone underwater the

  light streaming into the pool like bars my ears

  filled with the water’s prayer are you gone

  I slump into a temperate zone but then it rains

  your thoughts are all around me and they

  dimple the water like desire

  11

  When a boy throws sand on your face

  the hunter’s bow and arrow tucked behind

  my choking heart bends and I must do

  everything to suppress otherwise to summon

  the wren in me the festival but how lovely

  his round face would look pocked with

  sand how happy my hand would be to throw

  grains toward his face into the plumbing

  of a body I care little about here a giant ficus

  tree can lift up a sidewalk here I am lean with

  only a canister of water I am broken down in

  this valley no goodwill I am embroidered

  with love and grief with the exact moment

  your breathing becomes slow and deep

  12

  The sun sends its wires of heat onto your

  face stops on your cheek coiling into a

  present tense of red I am a hungry bird

  that murmurs love that murmurs more

  when I see red it is not blood or war it is

  not the spur on the point of fishhooks

  the red here is a tributary toward you it is

  a ruby of lunar rules a stone of sixty

  sides I want to ladle your ruddy rust taste

  your cheek that feels like church against

  my lips your terrestrial material the softest

  my mouth has found your skin that dies

  each year your sheen that blights that

  forever barriers me from you

  13

  Your thoughts come out as frays as howls

  they are like the bubbles from a fish’s mouth

  that rise and disappear globules of letters in
>
  a liquid envelope today a woman’s voice

  sounds old wood thick deep the voice is

  mine it takes deeper cover against the sky

  against its blue shin that never answers with

  anything but clouds and rain my voice digs

  with its fingers in the wrong direction dead

  down it goes head down my throat drags me

  one day I will bang and bang on the soil from

  below but you and your briefcase will not hear

  me one day you will look down at the manhole

  pass through my breath rising up as steam

  14

  A bench sits stares out to sea it says sit

  and feel this here another looks at the swamp

  onto the logarithmic sways of thistle I close

  my eyes and still see you I plug my ears

  and still hear you let us pass the bench

  and its lathed feelings let me bite the sky

  away from the seam of ocean let me grieve

  you and play you irk you and deter you let

  me be happy with the of of love the square

  root of you let me stop wanting the whole

  let us stand on earth and watch ourselves

  play toss with the yellow ball from where we

  are from eye level not through a photograph

  not a video not from space not later

  15

  In poetry accident is in vogue the idea of

  wandering into a forest and running into a

  flock of owls who normally work alone I

  used to hunt for the owl and its highbrow

  nose spellbound by its oooo oooo but we

  planned you induced you told you when

  now the sunlight plans your naps we eat not

  when rain strikes our magnolia but when the

  sun angles onto the axis of your back how

  much accident even in planning you have

  become my broken English how in one

  moment your hands collide as in clapping

  how in some other moment they will rise

  over my encased body touch in prayer

  III

  THE DOCTOR SAYS HOSPICE

  The doctor says hospice as if she

  is a hostess and

  wants Barbie Chang to try the

  crawfish there are

  no longer many crawl spaces left for

  her mother who no

  longer can take her own showers

  once she cut flowers

  but now her lungs are burnt crust

  lost in their own

  rusting Barbie Chang always thought

  her mother was heartless

  not lungless but now she knows the

  lungs were framed

  a pair of slabs tricked by the heart

  traitors to each other

  even the lungs want to socially identify

  with others to climb

  higher search for something better

  climbing up a ladder into

  the sky is another way of drowning

  their punishment is

  scars that grow into honeycombs

  there’s nothing scarier

  than something that won’t stop fooling

  you with its beauty

  MR. DARCY COMES AGAIN

  Mr. Darcy comes again through

  the uneven grass in

  a blue cape boots long hair a white

  shirt with sleeves that

  cover his palms the terminal part of

  his body but nothing

  terminal here even silence is not

  silent Barbie Chang

  sits again at terminal E gate 33 and

  waits for a plane that

  never arrives there are eyes on the

  runways in the fog

  planes look like nightgowns the people

  in the airport don’t

  speak they only gasp her gasp when

  she sees the man again

  in the fog in the threads of the trees

  she wants to be the girl

  who wrestles a man’s heart into a

  balcony into something

  more than four parts she wants to

  wrestle the same man’s

  heart over and over but what if there

  are at least nine hearts

  what if she only has one balcony is this

  why her gasp is trapped

  in her throat she wants the gasp to

  elope in the form of

  something other than a man she wants

  to throw up the gasp so

  she can finally be free of its ring and

  creep she wants it to

  leave her alone wants it to leave

  wants it

  BARBIE CHANG VOWS TO QUIT

  Barbie Chang vows to quit watching

  the Circle as they go to

  lunch lifted up in their own wind winding

  through the parking lot in

  hot plumes she vows to quit watching

  their children in pools

  together on plastic animals she tells

  herself she is more

  than a gesture has some stature is ready

  to work for space her

  muscles ache as she collegiates her

  children so in the

  future they paint pictures of themselves

  with black hair become

  more than someone else’s grieving

  because everyone has

  debt with the sun because at night things

  become clear again windows

  light up like presents in one a boy with

  cerebral palsy in a ball

  laughing his body stiff in the shape of an

  empty lawn chair

  BARBIE CHANG’S TEARS

  Barbie Chang’s tears are the lights of

  the city that go off on

  off on Mr. Darcy walks around the city

  but Barbie Chang can’t

  follow him she can’t promote herself

  if she had legs she would

  stop begging if she had hands she would

  stop her own wedding

  the city has no extra bedding it is not

  ready yet the maids are

  still making beds Barbie Chang is still

  looking for small openings

  there are always storms long arms drinks

  with pink umbrellas

  because they know she is confused like a

  sea horse light avoids her

  town on the map B2 C4 she wants to

  be used she doesn’t

  want to be with you or you it is morning

  again and she is already

  mourning the men the night men who

  never fight who never

  write back she prefers to sleep on her

  back so she can see the

  eyes of her attackers in the morning

  a bed with questions

  with her depression on each side two

  small holes from knees

  THERE ARE LUNGS

  There are lungs in Barbie Chang’s

  dreams and jeeps in her

  lungs the lungs are hard and almost

  dead the jeep no longer

  runs her mother’s lungs are undone

  they cover her heart like

  a tarp her mother thinks her own

  heart is softer than it is

  Barbie Chang thought her own heart

  would do more than

  beat she longs for a longer lawn where

  she can sit on a mower

  and not think about perimeters if a

  heart doesn’t beckon

  forever why does it matter if we ever

  reach language why does

  it matter which form is better or whether

  anyone ever wins an

  award for anything maybe her life is

  scarce becau
se it’s not

  about filling up but emptying out like

  the tree the men trim

  every four years how it just grows

  another way creeping

  under the driveway Barbie Chang is still

  working harder because

  the women at school seem better and

 

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