"What is there to say?", and: "has a city ever looked so beautiful?"
- "What is there to say?", and: "has a city ever looked so beautiful?"
"What is there to say?"
Once, I was somebody else's question.Like who are you when you are notsouth of someone's mouth?White bodies praised, not mine,my knees hostile to the groundwas a type of answer,was submission in a non-leather clad vicinity.Of me, which is a box of yeses,so fleshy and full of indecision.The other is alightin cherry dreams of consentlike everyone is in agreement,like everyone is having a good time.What kind of person—but the question again is premisedon a personhood,that is, the abilityto convince someoneof your will and needto live. I thought, am I that person?My toes are redfor the sake of resistance,but I am bending backwardsin an eternal somersault, for what?To be looped back into a bruise,the size of a small country?Its memory sitsinside me like a petty stone.Someone says, I love you, you feral thing,and I go, am I? Am I?Who are you talking to?In the world, they are full of answers,they are full of arrows that pointat every cusp and bone,thorough as a book.They tell me what to do,how far my heart can stretch,and if I cower on all fours, I can too,like a white goat, bleat towards the sun. [End Page 66]
"has a city ever looked so beautiful?"
a question in which I renounce myselfin favor of a lesser me with my petite woesI think I am supposed to say yesflatiron yes dear to the fumesthat keep on noxious rising yesuntil my white pinafore full of holesis the shape of a more perfect violencehow congenial the city which calls itselfeveryone's home, this flesh-grooveI call mine, the rules ever changingstill with its yes steeples that prickthe sky's great white tide as if to sayokay, yes, but what can you withstand?the answer is a disappointmentlike milk failing to rushto full fortitude even as so muchdepends upon someone else calling mea name in indeterminant time always someone knowing more about my small life [End Page 67] though the daily ear of me does and does try to touchthe bright-nothing ceilingexpecting something, someone to bewaiting like a mother-godthe prizes dealt, the work laboredgiven its due shall not wantbeyond my good healthmy hair, thick // my body grievingnone of which warns the cityfilled with water when it dissipates:a field of marrow, such good brickfor someone to build up, to topple [End Page 68]
Muriel Leung is the author of Bone Confetti (Noemi Press). Her writing appears in Gulf Coast, Drunken Boat, Fairy Tale Review, and others. She has received fellowships to Kundiman and VONA/Voices Workshop. She co-edits poetry at Apogee Journal. Currently, she is a PhD student in Creative Writing and Literature at University of Southern California.
