December 18, 2008

For just a fraction of a moment
that afternoon, if we think of time
as being a whole, you were the newest

​

​

person in the world. You were

the emptiest vessel on earth,

knowing nothing of this place

​

​

or of yourself—that you even were

a self, that a self was something

one could be, that one could be

​

​

at all, and what was being?

For that narrowest sliver
of a whole, you were the least

​

​

experienced person on earth,
and then you weren't. You knew me

before you knew your own body—

​

​

what to do with your hands,
your pink fists battering your face.

We swaddled you as if against

​

​

that confusion, though I tell you
that confusion never leaves. The body

remains a house unaware of its rooms.

​

​

(The Hong Kong Review, Vol. I, No. 2)