By Taylor Fang
eulogy for dying pine
I once held the shadows
in your knotted hands to mine,
blemished sap on our wrists,
dust up our nostrils,
knowing where my arm ended
and yours began
to lose children.
a carpet of needles, of bark
that still fissures
the newsprint of my feet,
fragile skin, flaking lovers,
full of sky and fringe
and charred horizon—
deforming my ankles,
my mouth, your fate.
because you are dying,
and the skies are full of them.
but don’t bleed
for the stratosphere twisting,
writhing, leaving behind wax,
scales of fish, plaster like rubble,
your skin. bleed
for your sap
in the milk between body and ghost,
coffin and cupola, worms that eat
your succulence.
hold onto my wrists, my ankles,
your roots. your sockets
unraveling, burying pine cones,
leaving the corpse behind—
we live in the undergrowth
but there are no graves here.
“loveless” © Robb North (https://www.flickr.com/photos/robbn1/4045930375/)
anatomy
your faceless blue shadow
mauled on the water,
yawning in the waves,
makes me wonder what
a broken piano tastes like.
what a broken body sings.
fingers spotting ripples,
calico syphons on your body,
your ghost, swallowing
unhinged limbs, protruding sockets,
keys spilled down every valley
in your spine,
up your fibula,
through your sternum
clouds that never let go
of the corduroy sky.
this sky. this catacomb
of gilded reflection, painted
frog eggs, anemone bleached
to the roof of your mouth, your cavern,
your ridged channels of cracked
teeth I stick to mine with my fingers
nimble and fleeting, catching
the strings the screws one at a time
wires bolts hammers
keep falling
apart. and the felt, sculpted
with my fingers
like sea urchin bones.
scoop out clavicle, femur, scapula
from socket, brittle sternum
to cartilage, licked
white with blood cell blossoms.
beethoven down your broken
collarbone.
and black and white
to cut off your patella
with a single slice, still straining
bach out of the air
cracked jaws choose to bleed.
your arms like fish, transparent,
thrashing in the waves—
skeletons of music sheets.
Taylor Fang is a high school student living in Utah. Her works have previously been published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Sprout Magazine, Moledro Magazine, and others. Besides poetry, she enjoys debate, piano, and tennis.
