When the story ends—the hero’s hands wiped clean, / sword gleaming above the mantel— / there are those of us who find the belly of a castle / is no place for children who grow / like weeds, like vines, like yellow straw.

Survival reduced to pickets wakes me at night. Walls painted in stench, each day the beginning of my last. A siren of coppers chases rioters waving placards about paradigm shifts. Faces of my dead friends break out from the wind, imprint on each uniform’s head, sketching shapes with colourless lips.

They made the finest things / of bone and zealous shell: / homes for the scholars who / scuttled maze-like down

Magic grows in the interstices: / shadowy blades springing / from the hands of statues, / herb and root, flower and fruit

To trace the taboo labyrinth, sneak / past the frigid swells, between breakers, / make your way / up the pebbled strand, bare feet bleeding.

My grandfather was a herbalist— / he mixed rare leaves and seeds, ground them together / & when he was done, he smeared the mixture on my forehead. / This will protect you from evil spirits, He said.

i find my body and my body / in the banyan tree i find my body / the tree finds its body in me

“Why do so many Asians believe in ghosts?” / Two white yokai scholars won’t stop gawking / at us like we’re aliens seen through a telescope. / They bait our deceased ancestors to rise up