“HIVEMIND”

//declare yourself, east asians

{we the

we the people we the veneer peelings on smoldering verandas

we the ribs chipped by unatomic silence trickling down fourteen stories

we the koi in redlined ponds gulping salt-song in bleeding gill      holding snake, pounding stakes         in land

dripping white                        we the closed xian restaurant on thirteenth down past the strip club replaced by

pancake parlors                      we melting plastic flamingos on grassless lawns

we the unclosed argument              we the brackish tide blemished by the blood of the colony

//occupation, please

the workers are out in the bay area the drones are dancing in the dark strung up by neckties at stainedglass

churches

//illnesses or conditions

not so machiavellian to be cold not so bright not so yellowbelly as if to cower             goldenrod as if to take

pride not the angles they cannot be kept right

//what god

in a war between the sun and the stars the wind always wins

//background check

about hunger, in a case where the hypothalamus is absent from its respective cavity the patient may be inclined to

rummage for ancestry in halibut-bones in a cadence of newyorker any kanji is excruciating anybody should

know that at least any glasseyed statue with trench coat yes anything will do for lunch honey we’re lucky to be

here anyways anything for another zero at the end of course, we would kneel; pimp our dogleg leaking crimson

to cobblestone; but somewhere it is raining; the water is pearling into blackblue inferno into shattered

streetlights over pedestrian-heads over the family owned establishment on seventh over the rotting of ubiquity

and routine over strained reflection of a self-portrait in a coffee table [a bridge seemingly insurmountable] to

parent and child yes honey today is poison tomorrow

//confirm transaction

yes our gazes splintering into thrumming vibrato siphoned twin-reverse-rivers into teal yes our scythes weep

through unripe fruit; uneaten, unholy–

yes a field a fable yes, we a hivemind yes,

we, an epitaph, since

somewhere, it is burning;

burning.

};

xian– a large city in China, Xi’an.