hypnotic laser pineapple

Elaine Wang

Kenji C. Liu

In water, brightness, an indefinite composition
of languages. Also

the origin of floods. Feathery tides of leaf, and
muscular earth beneath.

Humidity, regenerate the limbs
of this day. Regrow

the eye, aflame, secreted. How bold
the meadow of toxins laid out for thirsty skin.

This copse in the belly, rich with accumulated, grasping
pinky fingers.

 

 

Diamonds between the folds, moon pearl, small
explosions. Don’t ever.

I’m here for the bunker, the imagined
survivor of me.

Soon I’ll pop the hatch and let earth be
under again. But

never needed the world. Radio fingers
creeping in on moss wings.

 

 

We surround all things blue. A mass of incensed
kaleidoscopes. Our compound

viewer, a labor iridescent
touched by more hands than a body should grow.

Spring sunlight laces the shoulder
and then it becomes a wing. It becomes

a glass city, stabbing the world with aquamarine.
Our clouds settle and wrap, enfold

the technical explanations, the executive
decisions. We lick the papers with little lightning tongues.

 

 

On this day a republic is declared tumbling
backward. Is founded on

a black eye. See how the mirror ball opens
its many lids and nets you

in a hypnotic laser pineapple.
Don’t close the doors. Even a purely visual apparition

has a sound somewhere. From your nest
of high thread counts, amplify the boom.

 

 

Is this world a fire or a fly? A mob
of floaters and no worms.

The moon opens and we are belly,
birds in residence. In resilience.

Uniformed snuffers smash the door, make fingers
from arms, from legs. They rename

our leather, call us justification. We are
illegible, but this is not the real problem.

 

 

Dearly, it’s tense world afraid softly?
Oh whose feral of whirl friend grasp
was. Re district—wasn’t secrets infrared!!
Pastels, always dignity. Was.

Dearest, if this would a find drafty?
An arouse afuera of wind frond grip
wuz. Rim dust—wasp florets unfold!!
Posters, wrong diggity. Nos.

Dears, is thief wold a fired oily?
Be urns as sin of wire found zings
nurse. Pre trist—writer sorbets unafraid!!
Proteges, awry lightning. Rig.

 

 

むねそれぞっなれあえそ。
でゆほっるみたよっふまなき。
けよぬってかみぽねっほ。
やてんちとっねらきやそんのあまをぬ。
れほっむ。
ほえひなっすを。

Mune sore zo nnare ae so.
De yu horru mita yoffumanaki.
Ke yonu tteka mi po nehho.
Ya ten chito nneraki ya son no ama onu.
Re hommu.
Hoe hinassu o.

Moon sore, sow area is so.
Deluge horror me, tie your fumes naked.
Okay a new take. My poor neigh hope.
Yeah, ten cheaters near a key. Yeah, sun knows a minus.
Red home.
Oh he’s nasty whoa.

My moon is sore, I’ve sown this area so.
Deluge me horror, I’m tied naked to your fumes.
A new take on cake. My poor neck, hopeless.
Your tendency is to cheat. Keep your sun. No more news.
Home has been read:
Only nests of woe.

 

 

Elaine Wang

Elaine Wang has been published in SpirescahoodaloodalingAnalectaHot HouseZero Ducats, the Lantern ReviewFreezeRay, Front Porch, and Memorious. Recently, she was part of 92y’s #wordswelivein project. She is a Kundiman fellow and 2014 Pushcart Prize Nominee. She currently lives with a Cat God disguised as a large orange Maine Coon named Hebby.

Kenji C. Liu

Kenji C. Liu (劉謙司) is author of Map of an Onion, national winner of the 2015 Hillary Gravendyk Poetry Prize. His poetry is in American Poetry Review, Action Yes!, Apogee, Split This Rock’s poem of the week series, several anthologies, and two chapbooks, You Left Without Your Shoes (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Craters: A Field Guide (Goodmorning Menagerie, 2017). A Kundiman fellow and an alumnus of VONA/Voices, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and the Community of Writers, he lives in LA.