I want you to read this:
my night was the endless Niagara.
Love, flowing along sediment
of bones and thorny breathing,
ends on a brown couch of dog
and cat hair nice against my jeans.
I woke there next to a loaded potato gun.
Can’t stop writing dirty things
on the Buddha board
hoping you will read them.
If not you,
anyone.
My bones’ silence
breathes thorns.
And the message always
erases itself.
to cut immigration
is to cut me in half
half-Filipino I am already
halved quartered diced you take
a knife to my mother she keeps
a knife at her neck we both are
American in the blade of the word
I used to pretend to be more
my more-accepted half
to have to choose
is to have nothing
is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017).
His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in FLAPPERHOUSE, After the Pause,
The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle poetry
journal. Find him in Columbus, Ohio or at his website:
http://jimjakk.com