Soldier, Night
In
memory of Danny Chen
By mountain night moon he reads
his future,
the distant fire
seems close but he knows it can never be
reached in time, that he can
not be saved, that he will dissolve
but
his bones, blood will run
towards it anyway, even as all promises multiply
even if they will say he couldn’t endure
the gravel he had
to crawl through
those sharp rocks those small
missiles daily
curse cutting across troposphere tracking
his foreign
body his immigrant scent
there will be no witness
except his people’s memory
skin torn to mend someone else’s universe
to be a man apart
to keep another child safe in night
lights,
shapes of seashells
or octopi, each bulb an eye in the tip of tapered tentacle,
cut like candles that never flicker
never waver
until its circuits break
until its flow
interrupted
like
the life he used to have
in a city he used to know
when he was the
child who opened
his eyes
midnight facing
East he’s here now
under mountain night stars brimming
he’s alone in the tower facing up
to the wheel of fire, the magic spokes
tangled to
varicose madness
and he won’t wait
for
the rose to open
for
the gun to weep
and he won’t wonder
about the boy who lies
about the
wolf and now lies bleeding
in this
motherless season
he won’t tell anyone
when the
sky falls down
he won’t worry
about the wheel of fortune
or the sound of the one clapping hand
by the mountain night stars, the October silence
opens like
a door
that he drifts through
after
fire water light
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