after Chungking Express (1994)
This morning, I stumbled into an airport
as the leaves browned themselves a new
season. I was running from a storm.
It blew through the city’s gums—
pineapple cans flossed
across clotheslines, casting Kowloon in a sweet-
sticky glaze. Mansions awash in a gulf
of expiration labels. & suddenly,
every crushed windowpane spilled
the same acid melody: May 1st
fanning over bunk-bed dreams like
a prophetic Rolodex.
Confession: I may or may not have started
the deluge. I, the original perpetrator—
a self-destructive weatherman
or weather-god—loading pineapple
cans in a lightning rod aimed
for the sky. See, the truth
is that the other woman’s wig
only covered up my grief in a couple
blonde strands. I watched her sleep
on a hotel mattress, settle into Hollywood
static: an image
of an image.
Hollow xerox distorting intimacy.
The truth is that I was still waiting
for you to call me back. So I left
the bed. I cast all my unanswered
love into a can, held its moonish shadow
in my palms & threw it. The sky grew long
with syruped tides, roiling over in all
my twilight desire. Desire so full
the whole city had to bear its flooding.
I was trying to spoil the possibility
of expiration. Even in this airport terminal,
I am still trying to stick time in a bed
of pineapple glaze.
If only the expiration label grew
another month. If only a plane
could fly without wings.
