by Ryan Wong
A hibiscus blooms in between my toes, its sunlit form
like a memory long washed away:
waterproof plasters, hot afternoons and dirty shoes,
skimming through books in a language forever caught between my tongue and teeth.
The earth beneath my feet is rough.
A vine curls around my ankle and I want to ask where its roots are,
to tell it that I am not a home but an empty tomb
at the bottom of an endless pool, fingers outstretched and toes pointed.
A teacup is pressed into my hands and I drop it not a moment later,
the scalding tea burning the poor vine to dirt.
It cuts like broken porcelain.
Through the gentle veil of smoke, my ancestors keep their backs turned
and lips pursed, silent as they’ve always been.
All I can hear is the cracking of alabaster,
like running through a field of dead grass, or diving into a river of salt.
Blood coats my hands and feet. Blood, that you could draw
from every vein in my body and still I could not say was mine.
I am but the aftermath of one too many contradictions and contractions,
a pale cloud in a storm, a stranger in this skin.
A hibiscus blooms in between my toes,
its petals the colour of blood a few shades too light.
Under the familiar afternoon sun, one mirror looks upon another,
and the worlds of both are casted into sunless shadow.