STEPHANIE CHANG
Rafflesia
poetry finalist in our 2020-2021 Writing Contest
What I can’t say for sure is that the bone sticking out from the blue
has something to do with creation. That you were invented a carcass
of sugarplum and wax, with nobody there
to stop the rot. The cruelty of it.
For years, salvation was my least favorite color
and Saving Face was my favorite movie. I can remember
you, crying by the sunflower patch. You were beheading each one.
Each by the nape. I leaned in and took a photo.
(We were dancing, then
and didn’t even know it.)
I tried to do away with the flies
breeding bodies inside your body. I called
my father, who called me a girl
so unaware of her own unmaking. I called
the last boy I loved and he said fuck you.
I had forgotten all about the massacre until you pressed
a jewel of honey on my tongue. No species knows how
to blame a world that’s fallen in love with better
versions of itself.
It’s too late anyway. Any language capable of killing you
has been dead for centuries. I caught the stench between
my teeth and swallowed. You were so pleased
that time I poured hot resin over you. We were so silly
thinking we could preserve the moment of our meeting.
As if fate would reroute itself that cleanly. In your eyes
a fist of oil, pearling or burning. I forget. The records lie. I know.
The oil spills into sunset, sat at the bottom of the well.
Your hands on my face are the most violent shade of red; they are,
they are. You ask me why people build ruins. Why I’m
still here. Was rain invented to sell more umbrellas?
Of course, I say. I hold the sky
open
for you. Of course I do.
Stephanie Chang is a poet from Vancouver, Canada. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from The Blue Mesa Review, Adroit Journal, Kenyon Review, Waxwing, and Penn Review. She is the author of NIGHT MARKET IN TECHNICOLOR (Ghost City Press) and edits for Sine Theta Magazine.