莫道不銷魂 | Don’t say I’m not overcome with feeling.

I have never seen you with black hair. I will never see you again.

(siempre los míos son los ojos tuyos) | (always my eyes are your eyes)

Ammā is perched on the doormat, / greasing her heels with Tiger Balm Red.

time / slips off my softened skin / and I grow wings.

food / mutates through cultural/ transmission.

tangled gold necklaces knotted/ with grief, chains my mother will not break.

I call myself “child” now like |/ ghost who calls itself alive.

သူတို့မျှော်လင့်နေကြတဲ့/ အနာဂတ်ကို/ ငါတို့ မြင်ခွင့်ရပါ့မလား။ |
do their protests/ sound out a future/
we’ll be able to witness?

映 with a skinny sun radical and 其 a pronoun/ pointing to who knows what.

What good’s grief / that fails to earn resurrection?

you lean into me as if to complete the fragment in/ my mouth.

shoes saved like gas receipts
or used boarding passes

Meanwhile, I relinquish my authority on feeling. / Meanwhile, love is making its way to me.

we kiss and karma / thunders.

“Welcome to Pāʻia” and “Lei La the canoe speaks”

“Salon Sonnet” and “Matchmaker”

Most schools have cut their French programs,/ but teaching it here sparkles.

I’m alive and I have an appetite/ for longing.

For a second, I imagine how it feels to inhabit a body people desire like gold.