And About Time
Tung-Hui Hu
In purity you have removed everything
from your room: like a canyon holds a bridge
in its arms your body stretches
across morning. With eyes
closed or open it is the same,
sheets and walls and summer sky.
Soon you will smell the cigar
smoke from the courtyard so that
even the palm leaves are dripping
in it, you will walk
to the sink to wash your hands
of the blood you have accumulated
igneous as basalt. And you will say
to us I am so beautiful I am
the meridian between the days.
© 2007 University of North Carolina Greensboro