At night I dreamt of pelicans strung up in the oaks by their beaks, choked in Spanish moss, the storm’s winds blowing them down. Cars sliding through gasoline, smearing their bodies into the street.
The couch is more of a loveseat. It hardly seats the two of us. On it is the pillow and blanket I’ve been using. This is the longest conversation we’ve had in over a week.
Now that your precious jackfruit is out in the world, latch the angel onto your body and let nature take its course. She held her jackfruit to her breast, to her arms, her neck, rubbed it against herself until she was raw.
She’d say that it’s not enough for a man to create a life; he must sustain it. Protect it. Sufficiency means safety. It means contingencies. It means insurance.
The lord’s light is a fathomless null. Sometimes you’re afforded a glimpse and it’s a tunnel on the other side of which you crawl on the accordioned car’s ceiling.
At first everyone blamed the smoke on the war, then the steel plant, and, finally, the water. But Ong Hai says it’s not water but grief at the bottom of the sea.