As in the park, on occasion you see a whole
tree forelimb, loosened by yesterday’s storm,
deadweight into a clearing. Tense laughter from
a nearby blanket. Should a life have sat beneath—
limb loss redoubled. Or recall the redeye where I
had my pick of empty seats, and during smuggest
sleep, Business-Class-horizontal in Economy Light,
the ceiling console above where I’d nearly sat,
collapses, without pretext, onto the seats below. An
example of things that fall from the sky in the sky.
It’s unlike wearing outdated glasses on purpose:
those are words you can see you can’t see. If you
excavate a music box, you should assume tragedy
will ensue. It’s not chapstick’s last nub that never
surfaces. Not someone making-you-look by taking
a photo of air, moving. Rather, a schoolmate who
was made to wear her bike helmet in any vehicle.
As she armored for the backseat, our peers laughed,
really, at the parent I will become. Recall also the
French kid—genuinely named Pierre—asking and
refused, with exaggerated retching, by every girl
at the roller rink. Even by Helmet. Pierre aspired
to find the exhale of a flag on a windless day. If
as self-assured, I might advise park joggers against
music—listen for trees making paninis. Others might
advise me: not everything matters. Tuesday, I saw
park children stripping bark off a fallen bough.
Four days later, I see teenagers carrying the now
naked tusk for some design or prank. We are not
a people of Animaniacs, yet how do we explain
the most French ten-year-old, or probability law in
the natural world, the trees’ understanding of surface
area organization, shape, and what is a cartoon
if not a sky-sent branch on what you thought was
Saturday, but is in fact when all the days turn like leaves,
tumbling like anvils, in a territory you don’t recognize.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 4.
Kay Zhang has an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in English. She works and writes in New York City.
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