grandma unfolds her dress, & 1967 patterns
into life, its story mapped in provinces, in
families splayed naked on a dusking weave. The dress
is handsewn, seaming bound by restitching. Lilac & rhubarb
threads haphazard & layer threefold along the waist
like fingers of smoke. Mesmerizing, because a dying fire
is a spectacle. The dress of a hometown documenting
every small violence. Back in Beijing,
the dress glints the edge of a forest of chain-link
necklaces. Hollows of freshly minted faces,
dug-out walls where anything could hide, even
dreams. The dress hidden behind Mao’s head.
Wire—weak as it was—held its shape: girl
turned ghost, hunched, sidling dark, avoiding
sound. An iron ring beats the window
of memory. The dress lies bare on the bed, recounts
this country’s autobiography. In the cotton: a faint
outline of a family waving from stone steps. Their
house burns above them. Roof tiles splinter,
cave, the crackling beams gnawing
blackened threads. Iron mark on the lace unmistakable.
But who am I to judge the feeding habits of other animals?
To judge the relative virtue of stone through glass. To question
flaming red silk flapping in a speckled swath of night,
smoke billowing through the window,
soldiers standing on the street, arms open to receive
the ash & its children. Every dying fire is a spectacle,
& in the nearest government building,
the ground’s littered with iron rings.
See more poems from Issue 19.1 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5
