The Migration (Stepping Stones in a Cangshan Mountain Grotto)
1
Last night was a dream of you
crowned by daisies.
The European and the beautiful
The Greek gods.
Of course, you weren’t there when
the sun blared
DONG
, and the great bell rang
DONG DONG DONG
DONG DONG DONG DONG
DONG DONG DONG DONG as I
woke and saw the lantern flowers
trembling
2
My grandmother, her
arabic prayers turned to
mist in Dali cold
Footsteps leaving
prints
on the
red granite
When my mother and I hike to the
pagodas.
Dreams of the west. I leapt the stepping
stones protruding from the undergrowth
named them
Titian,
Rubens,
Giorgione,
leading to the old temple
3
You were only
a little nagging in my chest
then a hammer
on the heartstrings thucking on my ribcage
砰[1]-a 砰-a 砰-a 砰-a 砰-a
the thin words stuck underneath my tongue like
sticky toffee
used to describe
my mother’s past
blown west and west and west
blown west and west and west
Nocturnal lisps sleeps
in my flesh, wrings
the words seduced
turned west and turn to
diurnal prayers
4
W’ll never be free of this game of tug-of-war.
W’ll lose we said
we were meant to go,
to go to, to Heaven I think,
5
Match the pairs:
red granite sidewalk blueberry vendors mud roads
cracked cement churches Hudson
lantern flowers dandelions white marble
pagodas subway candy vendors
Er Hai lily pads cracked cement
Weather Report
Dali
73°F
Partly Cloudy
H: 81° L: 69°
Cloudy conditions expected around 2AM.
Air quality
43 – Good
Air quality index is 43, which is similar to
the night before the fire
when mama and meimei and gege sat
on the couch watching
the news hoping
for a good stock market turnout
Headline: GIRL FOUND
BRUTALLY… Banner: The S&P 500 is giving back recent gains…
UV Index 0: LOW
10% chance of rainfall around 4AM
just an hour before
mama takes meimei’s hand and
begins to pray to a picture
of jesus
that has caught fire
downstairs
she prays the stairs have
not collapsed yet
Sunrise 6:07 AM
Sunset 7:51 PM
there are fourteen
hours for us to find a new
home and
pretend none of
this happened
gege must find meimei a new toy
it’s just a toy he is getting frustrated
everything is replaceable
Humidity 91%
Visibility 11 mi:
It’s perfectly clear
right now.
Clinical Summary as Quintains
Hives (urticaria), possibly from sun exposure. Patient
says she was in the sun playing volleyball
yesterday. Possibly allergic reaction to sand from volleyball. Patient
has never played volleyball in the sand before. However did spend
much of childhood on the beach in the sun, quickly became upset
when peers called her asian instead of saying she was so tan
so Los Angeles standard barbie doll fake tan but real, a bit on the
yellow side that’s what a tan is though it’s a bit on the
yellow side on the yellow side is where she played with
fig-coloured bruises on the shins. Bruises the color of
figs. Peers bruise a light chartreuse so wears chartreuse on
Sundays to church, Father had gone to church had gone before
nine months were over mother had gone to church after father
had gone had gone to services and had sung hymns had hung mother’s
Virgin Mary from a nail above mother’s
bed. She had always been scared that
Mary would fall and injure mother.
Patient is sensitive to grass, when asked what allergies she had she
shook her head none none none but I do feel an ugly itch in
my chest when the vicar pulls my mother aside and before she
leaves she tells me to pull down my dress to straighten my posture to
call a friend on my walk home. Hives (urticaria) possibly from
stress possibly from sun exposure possibly has never walked outside
beyond eleven o’clock been on the train home once around midnight and
breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out breathe in you
better realize you’re the only thing breathing down under right now so
don’t breathe out until you’re out of the station
patient wants to know How do I protect myself from the
grass? prescribed bug spray Sawyer Picaridin Insect Repellent
for when the locusts arrive, mother says tuck my chin in and
be assertive communicate what you’re comfortable with scream I’M
NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS don’t
stain your chartreuse dress while trying to get away it’s
too expensive to get it dry-cleaned just remember they
won’t really care they’ll realize you bruise the color of figs use
your bug spray they confiscated the pepper spray while you
were at school it’s hazardous to have that breathe in breathe out breath
in the train station don’t sing your hymns don’t let
them know what you sound like don’t give them a reason to
try to get a performance but do breathe in breathe out breathe in
breathe because the Virgin Mary is watching you just
be careful
Patient is being sent home with calamine lotion and
benadryl. Return next morning to see if anything has
changed.
Stage V Invasive Lovesickness Patient’s Last Will & Testament
If you have to, pull it out through
my mouth, this sentimentality, I will
keep my jaw slack and my eyes
closed as though at the dentist’s,
drugged and mystified by the
white lights and white costume
with a sharp object lift it from my
throat, drag it out if you have to,
if you have to, scrape the surrounding
flesh for its remnants, its crumbs and
stains, if you have to, if it refuses to
come out, if it is caught behind my
collarbone or if it ragdolls, then
splice my chest open and shine
the mystifying white light and maybe
it will think salvation is near and (that is
what I thought when I first came here)
it will be compelled to lift itself out
if it is still sticking to the muscle
like molten toffee, peel it off after it
has congealed en plein air, Caution:
substance may be highly infectious,
do not feed/expose to any child, animal,
or plant, use at own risk of contamination.
If it has seeped between tissue like
spoiled milk, expose to high heat and
evaporate from body in vacuumed
space, tissue may be left burnt,
Caveat: if a splice in the chest is
performed and it is found in the form
of a small girl no larger than a beetle
who has cannibalized the heart and
moved up the spinal cord to the brain,
then and only then may you discard fully,
proceed with caution: girl-beetle is
potentially dangerous and can easily
escape the straying gaze
I [do not] voluntarily grant researchers
ownership of any cell line or biological
material obtained hereafter (you will
find that the girl-beetle has eaten
everything of use), I [do] grant critics
permission to call me An inspiring story,
full of poignancy and humanity, or
if it so pleases them, A whiny anecdote,
falling short of true significance in the
modern age
If you have to, make it matter because
it does not matter, if you
have to, care about what happens because
the dead don’t care too much about
keeping up with appearances, if you have
to, remember there is part of girl-beetle
that will never truly be disposed of
Discussing Boy Problems With JFK in Our Bunk Beds at Summer Camp
JFK, every
time I
pass his cabin
it feels
like there are
stones in my
stomach and
something
burned into
the skin on
my chest
We shall
pay any
price, he
says to me
I can only think,
JFK
you are a
dumbass.
He has
a girlfriend.
JFK tells me to
bear any burden
that
Vanessa, you’re
not special
Trust me,
I know.
JFK you don’t
understand I
touched his hand
on accident
once when we
were waiting
with friends
in the lunch
line and I
said sorry
but what I
meant to say
was
I literally want
to dig my
fingers into
your flesh and
eat your
heart
and several times
I could have
mistaken his
quietness for
contemplation
prediction is
my love language
and,
JFK, he has
this way of
looking
into me into
my when
I stare at him
and I
can only
pretend so far
that it is a
staring contest
but really there
is this blue that
makes me understand
some of those
european poets
JFK have you
seen his eyes?
and can you stop
tapping your
fingers on the
bedframe? it’s
annoying
JFK says that
I must
meet any hardship,
that he didn’t
understand why
I was letting
this dude
get in the
way of
asking what I could do for my country
didn’t understand
why I was so
hung up about
a dude that
I’d probably
never see
again
I said
JFK
impermanence is,
is the thing
stitched to
the soles of
my shoes uhh
the dirt that
clings to my
outsoles and
drags along
the uhm gravel
he nods
in agreement, I
think
how do
I fit in
so many thoughts
into a three-
week camp?
is it all so lovely
only because
it will end?
Will he never
be lovelier than
he is now?
I think,
impermanence
might be
the key
to the survival
and success
of liberty.
But how
can I help
being scared?
JFK,
I want to be
someone’s
permanence?
[1] peng (onomatopoeia, thumping)
Vanessa Y. Niu is a first generation Chinese-American spoken-word and page poet who lives in New York City. She has also written text for the modern composition scene at music institutions such as Juilliard and Interlochen.