michelle li
Where the sky has cracked itself open on a winter morning and two children are cold and bleeding
In the beginning, I think Oppenheimer knew he
had opened the world, starting right from
the sky. The way he tips his hat, eyes blue and
fevered, sentences wrong—I think his body knew before
his mind did. Reader, open your mouth wide. My body
is hollow and I hurt. Even after the smoke, there were the
metal tanks and putrid chemicals, and now
there are the guns. There is the way violence began,
with a literal bang and now we call this the American
smoke, the one we cough up, watching it fissure the sky
into a blood metal maw. The only beautiful thing
that comes from violence is poetry. Look up.
Tell me, tell me, tell me, that these wounds will heal
with time; I still hear a gentle singing in the distance. Tell me
it is over and the world can still be beautiful. In this cold, I can hardly feel
my toes yet the sun is still alive and spilling and we are awake and
breathing. Think of it like this: the gunfire is only the sound
of people trying to live a little longer*. I’ll hold myself until I believe it:
the future does not depend only on today. Yet still, we sit behind
the trellis, fresh bandages between her teeth, her lips parched and
chewed apart as she wraps linen over my blood spots
and hums some forgotten lullaby. Everything seems apocalyptic.
except the scenery. Don’t die, I want to say, but the truth is,
I don’t know. All I can promise is: this open tissue, it will scar and
the sky will open its mouth, wide and red enough
to swallow us whole. Let’s be silent for a while. After all, you
have my word, you have my word.
*From Ocean Vuong’s collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds. The poem here is titled, “Someday I'll
Love Ocean Vuong.”
ML
Michelle Li lives in TX and enjoys writing. She has been recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, The Waltham Forest Poetry Contest, The Rising Arts Awards, published or forthcoming in Idle Ink, Masque and Spectacle, and Lumina Journal among others. She is an alumnus of the 92Y Young Poet's Workshop, and you can find her on the board of the Incandescent Review, Pen and Quill magazine, and the Malu Zine. She’ll read practically anything she can get her hands on, the more absurd and emotional the work, the better, and plays both violin and piano. She has an unhealthy obsession with Rachmaninoff, morally grey characters, and Sylvia Plath.
