Sueyeun Juliette Lee

You didn’t know this

 

Five. Four. Three. Two.

A little bird was tired.

Its clock had never stopped.

A seashell is my wing. I wonder what it does.

Inside the copper wire was salt, gathered in a pail.

Let’s read together before the sun comes down.

 

The North Pole is a place I dreamed.

Soft is to touch and then to think it.

Cold is a place that I set down.

 

And I would run from tigers.

And I would fall asleep.

And if you liked it I would bring a flower.

And if you liked it would be a thing.

And inside the space is quiet.

And then we parted with a big blue wave.

 

To run with horses is the strongest word.

Sunlight could be, too,

from a slide to animals to the ending of a dream.

 

I made a space for you to step aside.

That isn’t what I said.

I was quiet inside the thunderstorm

thinking how I wonder what it does.

Far is when it isn’t of the fingers, a spell.

Sweet is the sound that falls on the ground.

 

 

 

Enter the Dragon

 

keeper of stamps, ink pads and wells, high glosses, liquid viscous varnishes, paint brushes and spongy pads—a serpentine river outline obscures the watermark on the page, catches in the creases and irregularities of its pressing by hand. we watch the pooling drop seep until its context disappears. unemotional, expected, evaporation could have been as momentously benign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a wellspring of thought. moves on without gaps or expressions of ecstasy. continuous, fibrous, multiple—violet shades drawn down over a liquid vibe. explosions can be implicit, silent, constructed out of a hundred thousand water-based powders. there are nuances, grievings, but the pattern takes another breath before diving farther down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

the dominant trait is of curling the tongue.

it is with a fist I must communicate

lacking emotional content

scratching against the surface

 

 

 

we enjoy similarities

smile with the same bleached teeth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in Louisiana I am still not your cousin. my mouth is wet with the force of intrigue, signifying a plea for the unuttered escape. we let ourselves down the knotted stairs mine being divorced from adders and pink frothy blossoms. a mountain island keep, a cereal bowl of fantasy: we skiff along with and without stretchy t-shirts and scars, neither casting shade in the made-up spaces. I think we've staggered here before: both actual, both alert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

chased into the ghetto, the factory, the warehouse,

we stone face with what saying can evoke

 

afloat or on top held no regard

 

the lens moving as always

the crowd moving as always

 

categorical only in its lack of a tonal key

 

 

 

 

 

 

multiple encounters transfigure doom

 

the one we stroke to fire inside us

 

extending hand as metaphor

literal automatic release

crouched and diverse

plural opposite—

the fallen form

whose shoulders wings

 

 

 

 

 

 

mistaken by accident.

held down to no ground.

the will is fireproof,

engulfed in a liquid shroud.

 

 

imagination can be secreted. sweat makes an outline around the body when we dance. many instances converge slowly on the minute, and though hand bashes mouth or strikes a face down, we rise without repenting, stand tersely for the cue.