an alluring girl —
in winter prefers minions,
not unkind mountains

Amy S. Choi
2006

I see them approaching — don’t worry.
I will throw melons at them.
Give me a grapefruit, too.

Amy S. Choi
2006

I used to love words
Like porkpie, and blue.

Amy S. Choi
2006

The thing about drawing a line in the sand is you never know when the wind will sweep it away, or when an unexpected wave will crash over it, or even when some crab might crawl across it and blur its solidity. The lines are temporal. How can it be that we place so much significance in taking a stand and drawing that line, in saying this is where I stop, this is where you begin, and either we meet, here, or we say goodbye? So much significance placed on divide, as if by marking separation, we are somehow safer.

Or maybe the lines are already etched. Maybe circumstance simply uncovers the boundaries, and maybe love makes them melt away. I wish I had an eraser for my life, to rub away the lines and grandstanding, to make me forget how to always prepare for goodbye, and therefore invite it. I don’t remember why I argued. I don’t remember why it was so important. It is a terrifying thing to fight for a voice and then have nothing inside to speak of. To have the capacity to absent oneself, for something as vacuous as a hope, while understanding that to be one person alone is to be a vacuum.

I know there is safety in a certain kind of containment, in the untouchable-ness that boundaries permit. I know that by making the statement that this is where you stop and where I begin, that no accidental humanity oozes out and becomes toxic. A line is our last sentry against hurt. But how honest can a line be, when really all we are doing is hiding behind a kind of abstract geometry, drawn in dust.

Amy S. Choi
2006

Oh well he says as he stands up
But I wail But I whisper But I tell myself
How can that be enough?
I remember, you said you are concerned with the truth of what you say.
So what does it mean to say nothing at all
To maybe write a poem or
Instead give each touch an extra weight
To somehow compress a soul into the curve of a hip,
Or neck, or hand, and hope to give it voice.
Maybe if I can’t speak, I can compel his body to listen. But
Oh well he said as he stood up and
I watch his back shrink into the distance,
The cowboy lean hips, the angular shoulders
Gradually melting into other deaf shoulders, other deaf bodies.
I wonder if I ever had him,
Perhaps in that one dim afternoon
Or that day he brushed his lips against my fingertips
Perhaps in those moments of permanence as we walked along
When nobody knew us, and we didn’t know ourselves.

I wish the absence were complete.
But pressing the air around me, I can feel him with my palms
So I don’t dare breathe I don’t touch too hard I am afraid he will vaporize
I am afraid to speak out loud
Even if he is now just the space he leaves behind.
And I hate you for that
I hate you for your poetry
I remember, you said she was the perfection of your life.
But you couldn’t have her, or that is, you didn’t
You would have had to think too hard about how you could be with her
So you wrote, instead. You put her in everything you wrote.

Is that the only way to be together?
That in the expanse of unsaid words and untouched skin
Something so stupid and silly as poetry is the only way
And the only solace?
I wish I could hit you
I am afraid I have idolized you too long
Because Oh well he said when he stood up and
I screamed and I broke but I let him go.

I know you have stuttered. I know the poems plagued you
You tripped over them like boulders
And the more you loved them the more they betrayed you.
But now they plague me too and I hate you for that
I am pinned by these lumps of care and fear and sound
And I no longer know
If the poetry means everything, or nothing.

Amy S. Choi
2006

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about,
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
Doesn’t make sense.

Jelaluddin Rumi
translated to the English in 1995

I am talking to you about poetry
and you say
when do we eat.
The worst of it is
I’m hungry too.

Alicia Partnoy
1992

Drew the dark against you tight
Hid my face from the feral light

Amy S. Choi
2006

I was diagnosed —
as a Ghost

Amy S. Choi
2006

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: January 3, 2006 23:33:06 Draft Saved
Subject: Do you have a minute?

I wonder if this really would be easier, in a different time or place. If we ran away. If nobody had to know. If I did not act, and you did not respond. If we were different people.

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: January 30, 2006 09:55:11
Subject: Do you have a minute?

So … that’s it? Shouldn’t we talk?

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: January 30, 2006 12:45:10
Subject: Re: Re: Do you have a minute?

Wait – please.

I am sorry if I disappointed you.

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: greengold @blindspace.com
Date: February 13, 2006 18:00:35
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do you have a minute?

When did you know you were leaving?

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: February 17, 2006 22:00:48 Draft Saved
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do you have a minute?

I wish there was no return to me. I wish I disappeared when we touched. You could only absent yourself from air.

How is it possible that when we end, you continue?

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold @blindspace.com
Date: February 20, 2006 09:00:12
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hey

?

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: February 20, 2006 17:22:00 Draft Saved
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do you have a minute?

IswearIdontneedyouIdontneedyouIdontneedyou

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: February 24, 2006 02:20:20 Draft Saved
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do you have a minute?

Who do I need to be to be who you need?

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: March 19, 2006 19:15:60 Draft Saved
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do you have a minute?

Sometimes, I can hear you.

From: Cipher@blindspace.com
To: Greengold@blindspace.com
Date: April 5, 2006 00:15:54 Draft Saved
Subject: Still

All I see are exit patterns. Rivulets disappearing into sewers. A stamped down track of snow. The closing of a subway door. When people travel towards something, they have to travel away from something else. But what happens to the exit path? Does it exist after it’s been traveled? How do I know that everybody else that comes to me won’t take your same path away? When you left me, did you show everyone I love the way out?

Amy S. Choi
2006