American Deathbed by Jiarong Zhang
is boneboat. We make teeth
from pennies for our American
toothfairy. We hide them under our
pillow next to our nectarine
acetaminophen. Dali mouths
opening to other mouths
form this neck of history.
I’m sucking my pregnancy
test like a popsicle. I’m
breastfeeding the sea.
You’re in bed with
your video game girlfriend
except it’s you on the screen,
you’re playing in the first person
your lips are kissing your feet.
You’re smoking a cigarette
in the deportees club.
You’re sitting on the toilet
beside your female-gendered
tub. I’m watching an old
woman crawl up the hill
of the city. I’m baptizing
myself in the acidachelake.
The sun is throbbing
into my throat. For who.
For who. I’m scalpel
-ing an ebony. You’re Fishhawk
Midnight. My naked legs
bent into the Geese
-Shaped V. Before we sleep,
you look out the window
to see what’s left of me. Out there,
beyond the American Deathbed,
you tell me there are lesions of
kindness. There are birds
jeweling our sleeps. There
are hyacinths, just purring.
I want my mother to see.
On the moon, you say
look closely to see
a child’s TV
playing infinitely on loop,
just purring with gravity.
I want the old song to play
of my father snoring in his
sleep. Mother yelling at me to
leave. In this twilight,
even anger is so pretty.
Live for me.
© 2014-2020, BOAAT Press. All rights reserved.
I love how playful Zhang is with language in this poem. From the lesions of kindness to the hyacinths, just purring, every image Zhang conjures is haunting in its specificity while abstract in its execution. In the background of it all is an undercurrent of electricity waiting to zap the attentive reader. American Deathbed is one of those poems you can’t read just once, and the reader willing to give it the time and attention it deserves will not regret the decision.
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