decay theory
Quinn Lui
in every dream where i die it is by suffocation:
my own hands unseaming my throat, voice
pooled there slow as honey. i’m emptying
sun-gold rivers into the back of my mind,
keeping count of how much it’ll cost the sky
to dredge the lake for a response. if we’re lucky
a promise will be found floating by morning,
faceup, a pale and bloated deep-sea fish
never meant to come this close to land. the ghosts
are drawing patterns in the dust draped thick
over the stairway railing. mine from another lifetime
curls cold hands into the ends of my hair, weaves
small braids that slip free of themselves as soon
as they’re released, fingerbones knitting along
the reflex arc of another unmeant apology.
neither of us speak. the moment holds
steady as the edge of a spinning coin; it’s been
long enough since we last touched this memory
it’s nothing but a seashell primed to burst into dust
if we look at it too closely. i don’t know what to do
without the misalignment, without the not-quite
wrongness that i only knew so well because
we never gave it a name, ever cautious in how
to phrase our treachery. i scrape my knuckles
on shingles, bargain morning away to the moon
over and over, her paper face smooth and full,
corners tucked out of sight. the floral-patterned
bedspread is slick with its own undoing, as if this is
some kind of penance, some kind of pretending.
it’s not yet time to give in to the speechless fury
of the sunrise, to the birdvoices corkscrewing
into the pallid air, warping the courses of
early-spring snows. it’s not time to wake up
from these unremembered dreams.
acer saccharum
Quinn Lui
they speak to each other, did you know? in ten thousand years
no one will understand anything of ours, but if we leave them alone
i think their voices will remain. if we leave them alone, but
we’re treekillers, both of us, down in the sap-thick marrow. yes,
or we want to be: knuckles scraped from tugging bark away as it grows,
stripping leaves and their whispered music from every branch
within reach. what splits the heartwood clean apart is how
i kept searching for disentanglement, but as you grew you bent
the way the wind wanted, bowed as if to charm, bowed as if
it was a choice. see, i was never meticulous that way, never careful
enough to please. never neatened my corners by electric sander
or convinced myself to breathe sawdust air. never laid in wait
as puppetry; i couldn’t, not with my hair branching anew, skin tight
and sharp around swelling fruits, mouth bursting into flower. i couldn’t,
but you could: you, always lining your words up, always preparing,
always planning in the neat number-language of abacus beads.
the wood was polished a dewdrop shine, ready to be strung together
by shaking hands. lips trembling, spring-buds in one last winter wind,
teeth clicking in kept count. in the garden, we did not speak.
i brushed emptied seed-pods out of my palms haphazard,
patted them down with the earth, looked at the dirt under my nails
and did not pick it away. opposite, you took your time, sinking
a half-splintered chopstick into the soil over and over. took care,
with a single seed left to lie snug in each grave, awaiting rebirth.
i don’t mean for this to be symbolic. sometimes the story writes itself.
BRUTALIST STRUCTURES
Quinn Lui
listen closer, little peacock. that’s not a wolf-song
the wind is singing outside. more and more often
i become the invasive species inside my own body,
my marrow ringing soundless with hunting horns.
one of us is the enemy; neither of us know which.
better remember: if the prey outruns the predator,
it’s because the prize and the price both ways are
our lives. winter cares less than any other hunter
and i know this well. it’ll bury its teeth to the roots
without a single thought of regrowth, but only if
it catches you. i talked to wolves in my sleep all
last year, head pillowed in their jaws. found them
napping at the foot of my bed every morning after.
don’t meet any of those yellow eyes, either yours
or mine. if you sit still enough the lights turn off
and it’s like you were never there.
about the writer
Quinn Lui is a Chinese-Canadian student whose work has appeared in Occulum, Synaesthesia Magazine, Half-Mystic, and elsewhere. They are the author of the micro-chapbook teething season for new skin (L’Éphémère Review, 2018) and can easily be bribed by soup dumplings or pictures of bees. You can find them @flowercryptid on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram, or wherever the moon is brightest.