“Sequence Across Golden Gate Bridge” by Ariel Zhang
Sequence Across Golden Gate Bridge
by Ariel Zhang
(i)
over 4:36 pm stale coffee and orange wedges, my dad reminisces about a childhood song he never learned. he sings half of the song through closed lips. at least you know it now, i say, as if that could heal the staff lines on his back that his father made. i regret trying to understand him. my hands busy like traffic jams and a city trying to forget itself. i begin to perform an autopsy on an orange, separating spongy white tissue from orange fat. i want the world in its nakedness, inflamed and soaking up light. i want the world fully clothed, thick peeled and un-markable. after dinner, i say, let’s go see the bridge. my dad, who has a symphony in his ear only he can hear, gets up to grab his coat. i’d like to think, like shostakovich and all the other composers torn from their sleep, he inscribes his own initials into the music.
(ii)
in the aftermath of rain, powerlines scoop up San Francisco in handfuls of deserted buildings and washed out graffiti. spray paint and poetry run down the streets. i try to catch them all. until i realize that my hands are also neon pink, orange, and fading. the city, an aerosol, waiting to be shaken up.
(iii)
a man with butterfly skin
opens his arms to the sky and shouts,
rainbow! look, rainbow!
he traces his baton across horizons, past
where the rainbow ends.
i bet he can see more colors than we do.
we are flushed
(iv)
to sea. i follow behind my dad
as we press our belly buttons deeper
into the city and watch the earth melt beneath
our feet. the crisis counseling sign screams blue.
the skyline undresses itself. how many autopsies
does San Francisco perform each day?
is the only way to know a home,
to know its bodies? is to know,
to grieve? we collect our valved hearts
over the sea drain and strain them
with our bare hands. we violently shove the pulp
back into our chests.
we believe a safety net keeps us safe. we let slip as fast as water.
but remember, there is poetry in these waters. these
waters do not forget. they are calling for a
flood. San Francisco perches in my backbone,
and sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. i am waiting
for the rumble to wake her up.