Back to Issue 16.

Sunday News

Ruoyu Wang

Sorry that every conversation with you 
is one for the reader; it’s always another 
theory about love. And sorry that I dug your name 
there, in our rest, at our wake. Sorry about 
what happened, though nothing 
ever did. I have no alibi. No truth, 
no eye to thread through. Only these vows 
proclaiming my faith is bound to a lamppost, somewhere
along the way home. Really, I just wanted 
to know if we’re something to thumb at, if you’d 
smile for something whole. This rust and light 
could coin us gold in a slit of dark. Somewhere, there is a direction
to this lighthouse. But these days, Rilke says You need to go
outside! so I bury well and eat better. Three meals seaside in a
glass house and everything 
you don’t like. This grocery list a criminal record. This wind
whipping around the coast like a confession you don’t know
what to call, but why don’t I make it easier 
for you. Raising this white flag. It was always 
something slow, like a novel French translation that’s slurred and
sober and all the more endearing. Or like a song on the radio
promising all the same things: only a little water, just a little love,
just a few tries. I can’t lie, watching your face still fall in season.
You still witness all the centuries, 
all the crime. I could be a killer, 
but I couldn’t hate the moon. I couldn’t not wait, still,
for the arrow to come straight through. 
The crossword and coffee and news. 
You and your right hand— 
man, I know how this goes. You don’t really miss me.

About the writer