by Shana Huang
If I were right beside you, I’d
whisper into the caverns of
your ears, filling them
with my tears,
which leak from my eyes and my hands,
shredded skin weeping,
weakening me, like your smile on a winter
day when you held me close to
your chest, heartbeat softly speaking a song
as you strangled me before the alter
like another lily snatched from the
earth and made into a bouquet,
present before the union of two ghosts
who were harvested with the love of
death, their presence filling the space with
lovely sounds, serenading the crowd as the
room fills with chatter and clatter,
shifting chairs scraping the floor as people
shift, standing like headstones in a graveyard
filling this space with the sound of people talking.
