by Shuyi Yin
The gaze of the moan birds flare
through shadows of godless moonlight.
A tortoise carrying his black and yellow shell
hears the summon from the sea waves
and crawls slowly across the midsummer
grass with its one thousand years'
practice of asceticism.
A cliff awaits.
Drops of lavender oil
trickle down into the sea, as it stretches
of canvas, unbreathable.
Underneath lives a jellyfish called Lonesome Tom.
He has no eyes, no ears, mouth, heart or brain.
No bones, no spine. He never feels lonely.
Yesterday, he paved his floors with gold
and drank a bottle of vodka,
then went to a funeral of red sea urchins
like the one two hundred years ago—
Koi Hanako's.
She once had a room carpeted
with screaming light.
An owl picks up salt and stone from the seabed,
pecks a robin’s eggs, enters the bellies of the ducks,
digs deep into the marrow of the dragonfly.