Suicide Flower

By Chris Song

eyelids resist drowsiness

sightless

at night

perhaps the dawn grows into a crow?

loss of speech plagues you

you are devoted

to Chicago’s mornings

as you are

to Texas’s void of nothingness

you turn them into colors,

art,

craft,

the words we call to mind

you reject crows and ditches

with scalpels, you gently cut open the night,

peer into its wound, to see

it blossom from the depths,

a suicide flower,

it’s your paintbrush

that brings me to the roller coaster of colors

running on the railway of words

without safety belts

(Translated by Teresa Shi)