October
The sun is as resolute as a bookmark,
or a dog-eared page, dictating: here,
the remembrance, and here, the fear.
How can I say it? All morning
I watch trees unraveling through the kitchen window,
their leaves dropping burnt and ochre,
each one a five-fingered impression
or a fluttering heart.
Days run bow-legged,
tumbling over themselves in spite of themselves,
and after darkness descends,
the moon spins into place, livid,
its electric shards reaching through the trees.
The truth is you want a heart
like his, the moon’s, I mean,
cool and stubborn, once consumed by fire.
Two months ago—this same house, the same
trees, the same ugly slant of light—
when you slid the silver blade carefully across
the green shell, bracing for the abrasion,
the one that you feared was the watermelon:
suddenly exposed, bleeding from a red heart.
Willie Lin is currently a student at the University of Virginia.