In an open room of a clean theatre

two children concentrate on rolling

a thousand napkins with the right

crease. That is intimacy. I am no longer

Here’s a shot I hope says I’m a victim.

I hope one says I’m used to having my hand

in the dirt. I’m a what’s next type. Filter out

through focus. Distort at your leisure. Have me

If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.

—Ronald Reagan

In this the latest version of history, which looks, as we enter into it,
Like just another block of vacants recolonized after being boarded up,
Boards now torn down but still no water or electricity, and so the street

Stuck out in the court’s

fringes again, follow-

through fingers hitched

below my bottom rib

like a name buckle

The downstairs windows

in our townhouse opened

as awkwardly as the front door

after the last shoulder-in.

Men in undershirts stare down,

toss out wastebaskets of receipts

like crumpled moths that keep striving to fly

against the dark brick, all the way to the ground.

It must feel good

deep in her throat

and all through her belly and leg bones,

so she just won’t stop

Cool sweeps over the streambed lip, say here & here, then, bare

ankles in hug; these intimate moments at dusk; what dissipates;

what stands in the place of gone when the jaw, in gape, remains a

restless O, & wide to tunnel inward; say incessant just beyond the

You open, wing-like & one-sided. How halves make the smirk

& you always two things gathering. Together, repeats you.

Opposites never really dance on ends; instead, this infinite loop,

which goes on without us, because our anatomy knows of

We’re returning to Cambodia together, father and daughter,

and he walks away from the wide Prek Eng road,

me rolling the black suitcase, chin down.

There are so many ways I bring him shame.

When I saw my father walking

I thought he might look like a man

afraid to die. Ahead

I kicked the road,

What’s taken in of us,

by you, asked to be there

stuck to your hands,

legs, and face. We all wanted to stay

She said I’ll be back soon mijo—

but in our windows, there’s still no glass,

when raindrops hit the sill

they touch my skin like her eyes did