II. Capes

I dreamed that I was a part of a hero team hopelessly overmatched by biological beings that could grow additional limbs and stretch at will to murder. Elastic monsters, they overcame our stagecoach. Then we asked what we were doing riding a stagecoach. Their leader was a blond white alpha male who looked like what would make him perfect would be if one of his brown followers died, and in so doing, taught him a valuable lesson about valuing life and humility and kindness. We heroes hid in darkness: cavernous, condemned buildings made romantic by their abandonment. We snuck, we observed, we cowered in fear, we took things out on each other. All seemed lost but then I slipped into that place between sleep and wakefulness just enough to give myself a lightsaber. Neuron by neuron I felt my body shift from the deep end of the dream toward consciousness. In the end I slew the bad guy, but I had to be awake to do it.

III. Listening

What if there was an X-Man whose mutant power was generating flawlessly, and at any volume, songs in their own head. They’d be weak against Sentinels but good for working out. Think of all the money she or he would save from buying records, iTunes, Beats by Dre headphones, and whatnot. Maybe they’d have the power to put music in other people’s heads too, but sharing music you love is its own kind of selfishness. If I had that power I’d lie on my back on a boat floating around in some estuary, staring up at the stars, content to be my own jukebox.

Balsa Wood Free Association

Hardware stores sell airplanes

in thin plastic bags,

flat slats of balsa wood

that you jam together through pre-sawed grooves,

throw the entire flimsy thing into the air

and hope for flight.

My dad would sometimes buy one for me—

his hope, most likely, to seed ambition

to be an engineer,

or even a pilot,

some well-paying job

that would eradicate my need

to visit hardware stores in the future.

It didn’t work.

I didn’t pay attention when I held two-by-fours for my dad to saw.

I couldn’t stop picturing my hands getting cut off in some accident.

So now I’m old and I can’t fix a thing.

The only time I have felt beautiful

is when I’ve had the chance to sit still

looking at a body of water and stone,

waves crashing or currents rolling

around jagged edges that have no plan

but to be worn down—

hard formations I could not possibly survive

if I landed on them.

For All Heartbroken Pizza Delivery Boys

She did it over a landline.

We still had those back then.

I thought we would lead Asian America to a revolution together—

I was very wrong.

Eventually I put on my dark-green polo shirt with Davanni’s stitched over

the half-baked remains of my heart

and went on my routes,

the incomprehensible roads of Prospect Park