BY VI KHI NAO

I can’t feel the bullet
made entirely from
the evening gown
of ennui lodged
in my soul,
just as you can’t feel
the fiberglass of
my desire dressed
like God’s mistress
reframing the coeval
landscape of my sex.
My time on earth
has a soul just as your
time in me, made
from the pipeline
of infinity, is soulless.
Earth, you are my inmate.
Time, you are my wife.
God, you are my rebirth.
Sky, you are my daughter.
While my daughter
sweeps the cloud floor
with her broom, the tornado,
and while my inmate is too
busy making love to my wife
won’t you tell your
discrete mass of
gray matter or your
particle of quantum
light to give me
radiation so I
can exist outside
of this electromagnetic
accident called life?

VI KHI NAO is the author of four poetry collections: Human Tetris (11:11 Press, 2019) Sheep Machine (Black Sun Lit, 2018), Umbilical Hospital (Press 1913, 2017), The Old Philosopher (winner of the Nightboat Prize for 2014), & of the short stories collection, A Brief Alphabet of Torture (winner of the 2016 FC2's Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize), the novel, Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016). vikhinao.com