Emprise Review

Barbara Yien

Brush strokes stingy as Mao’s schematic
pictogram for love: black eyes, bare ribs, no heart.

What I thought was calligraphy. The scrolls I filled,
the dictums: No slack. No suet. No shopworn silk.

Later, even the script seemed wrong, even
the instrument (too soft, too singsong). I switched

to razors, wire, flint. I burned the sacraments.
Peonies, azalea, sweet-scented osmanthus—I beheaded

them all. Years passed. I brittled,
I flensed! Then a hole in my chest opened

like a flowering koan: You have misunderstood,
you will return to this life as a beetle.