Your ease of step and untrembling hand,
caught between versions of my shadow,
have rendered me useless.
There are pens that have no means of expression,
sheets of paper hunger for touch
          to the point of aching.
You have made me a poet who hates words.
                    (I have no use for them.)
The language in which I love you
lacks form to gain definition. Unpronounceable by sound.
Only by fingers drawn out by the sun,
          living blades of grass.
Only by lips grown sweet as peeled lychee fruit,
          broken until tasted.
Only by breath that remembers its beginnings,
          believing in its own reincarnation.
                    (Words do nothing.)
The language in which I write is an ugly tool.
Sharpened corners force the poet to remove
one word after another, revising thoughts hopeless
as rainstorms
          off the nearest cliché.
Feelings divine meaning from words.
My feelings are malnourished.
The language in which I write closes hearts too easily.
For how can I use this pen to express you? A poem
                    not fit for words.
                    Not for one, nor for thousands.
Simple poetry is worthless compared to soft moments spent
in the corners of your eyes.
The page limits me to words, but I want to write wordless odes
          to you, that can only be read by me.
          I will memorize them like they were
          the shape of your face or the curve of your back.
You are my unwritten poem brought to life.
Let me devour every poetry book in search
          of the printed version of you, love.
                    (There is reason to live.)
There is haiku in your breaths.
There are sestinas on the undersides of your wrists
          that I used to kiss to pass the time.

copyright Giles Li, 2003

The mousetrap snapped to life while we slept.
We know this because the paper bag has moved
into the corner of the kitchen
and the tip of his tail peers out at us.
It has been your habit to set up traps in paper bags
so you can throw away their bodies without having to look.

This time the bag lacks the crisp edges
we have come to associate with death: wrinkled, worn,
softer to the touch than than the top of your grandfather’s head.
These bags are more for you, not them. Anything
so you feel less guilty; take comfort
in knowing that his final moments
were spent in exploration, not fear.

We had come to know him you thought. Never catching a glimpse,
but I heard him scramble inside the walls and vent;
I flailed at his shadows with unraveled coat hangers, sent threats
his direction,
punched holes in the drywall
as though intimidation worked both ways.

You said you didn’t want him dead, only to leave our house.
When you cried, I said I only wanted to protect you;
and in your dreams, you wanted somehow to believe I could.

You speak to his carcass
softly; sharing revelations and confessions you still keep from me.
From the inside, you can hide what you want to hide,
and so it was a fitting tribute. Secrets die with their owners,
and this mouse takes his and yours
to a dumpster in Central Square.

copyright Giles Li, 2007

Dear Cha:

Only half of your picture appears.

Arms crossed, eyes straight forward,
I can see refugee in the lines
where your eyebrows come closest.

Today I ate two lunches, decided not to visit the gym.
Let the stress of work hold me back;
felt this two cups of coffee twitch
stall between my wrists and my fingertips.
Noticed a scratch on my wedding band, too deep
to buff away, still trying with my thumb.

I met you on my computer screen, I’m sure
your body only rests as peacefully
as your loved ones thoughts
allow it to. Your wife says, you were very aware
of your lack of English skills.
That you couldn’t have started the fight
that dropped you to the snowy floor of Wisconsin woods.
Wouldn’t have known where to start, or even
that you were being insulted.

I managed to secure a couple thousand in funding yesterday
for my programs. Today, purchased some equipment
that set us back about that much. Wore sneakers
and a hat because it’s Friday. Marveled at the quality
of my iPod shuffled playlist during my commute;
so bad that I wanted to e-mail my wife,
tell her I heard two of her favorite songs
before I hit Arlington station.

In your picture, your 5 children,
are not to be found. Your wife, now widow
younger than I am, wraps her arms around your chest.
Her face is out of frame too, and all i saw
of you came from behind the bent iron in your eyes.
Where you took English classes, were learning to hunt
small game, adapting to the planet’s opposite conditions
to the heat you left only two years ago.

Maybe Cha, we could have been friends
down the line. Maybe we could have been strangers
on the same bus. Maybe you could have flashed highbeams at me
on the freeway, encouraging me to put more weight in my foot.

Most likely, we would never have crossed paths,
and so maybe this letter
from a stranger means nothing.

But maybe this sadness over your death
pulls the heavy air a little bit off your family
a thousand miles away and on the other side of the world.

And maybe grieving helps heal other wounds. Maybe.

Sending my love to you and your loved ones.

Your friend,
Giles

copyright Giles Li, 2007

A boy runs shoeless onto the front lawn
as we pull our rental Ford Focus – good american car
into this subdivided slice of
prefabricated suburbia.

Here, women without husbands and
children with nighttime memories for daddys
make trips to wholesalers and auto mechanics
on repaid time.

The price of gas is no deterrent to freeway travel.

His mother, now pregnant with a third,
tells us she can only cook American food,
apologizes as I approach
a second helping of ribs.

Her kitchen, decorated with rosewood:
“From Okinawa,” she says. “we were there for 3 years.”

Now in Southern California
where the world outside gated military housing
speaks our American language
but still confusing without the help of translators.

He, five-year-old soccer star,
draws us pictures of crocodiles
labelled “alligator” or sometimes
with just the artist’s name, “dylan” -

tells me he always sits on the green at kindergarten
where children fall in line for recess
and nobody talks about Iraq.

Now it’s past his bedtime
his brother is already sleeping and Dylan is acting up
like he usually does
when mommy wants him to lie down
and he misses his father,

he’s not sleepy, just growing up too fast,
just learning too much about what’s real,
just knowing himself too well.

“But I want to be doing something, not just lying in bed,”
his mother holds him as he sings himself to sleep,
cries that he misses his daddy.
And when he finally tires himself out,
she cries too and knows tomorrow
it’ll happen again.

copyright Giles Li, 2006