Ritual Warfare

I left my window open all night, and now rain

gushes into my bedroom through two milk-white

teeth. I look outside and witness another year

growing around a tree, the ring engraved on its bones,

strangely aglow A long time ago, I was told of shamans

carving oracles in the shoulder blades of oxen,

the diligence in which they heated bones

and deciphered their etchings, squinting under pale

light. You say you hate the mole living

on your upper lip. The next evening, I witness you

carve it out with a razorblade. It's strange

how we slice open magnolias, force them

into bloom, how we can no longer wait

for real gods to come and

knife us up. Already I've forgotten

my past incarnations. We fall asleep with the lights

on. You put your head in my palms

the way a tree (thunder-charred),

refuses to reveal how it became dead

and still empties itself for my touch.

---

Angie Sijun Lou is a Kundiman Fellow and a Ph.D. Candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

This poem was originally published in Angie’s chapbook All We Ask is You to Be Happy (Gold Line Press, 2018). To read a new poem by Angie entitled “Sapphic Fragment 41,” pick up a copy of Issue 3.