LatinosUSA

as if the screen were liquid silver
we’re swallowed in the last square of your life
my eyes and the nurses’ ether-voices stifle fear
as you are still here; bead-black doll eyes
above your mask and I ask them to show me
the paper where the pen-marks dive into curls
that would tell me something if curls were our
language today, it’s up to me to say and I say
and I see you are dying as the nurses’ voices
wrestle death into the corners and how they keep
it back for us—stop time across mercury, the sea of static
and that pocket image that is you and I aquatic,
one last fluidity—I see you and as the phone stops
I know death rushes in on you and those nurses,
the cruel dam bursts, engulfing the living and the dead
and I am left to imagine how they will cradle the little
that is left of you and later force down a sandwich between sobs
because they knew you and every breath you took before

Longlisted for The National Poetry Competition 2022

~~

你母亲想告诉你什么东西 your mother wants to tell you something

仿佛屏幕是液态的银
我们被你生命的最后一格吞没
我的眼睛和护士们的乙醚声音强忍着恐惧
因为你仍在这里；黑珠子的玩偶眼睛
在你的口罩上方露出来，我请求她们
给我看那张纸，笔迹沉浸，卷曲成团
如果卷曲是我们今天的语言，它们会
告诉我些什么 ，轮到我说话了，我说
我看见你濒临死亡，当护士们的声音
把死亡摔进角落，她们如何为我们
挡住它——阻止时间穿过水银，静电的海
那袖珍影像是你，而我是水中的
最后一抹流动——我看见你，当电话中断
我知道死亡向你和护士们席卷而来
无情的堤坝崩溃，淹没了生者与死者
留下我去想象她们如何轻轻抱着小小的你
你的残留，而后在抽泣之间强咽下三明治
因为她们曾经认识你，熟悉你的每一次呼吸。