ISABEL 玥 LI
Barren
when i arrived i always knew
that my dad would guide me through heaven.
you look younger,
i told him,
and as we walked
side by
side
i realised his
wrinkles moles whiskers
had
unfolded
faded
fallen away
and left
behind
a
smooth
space.
he had a big brown spot, right at the centre of his nose,
—like those raisins i ate everyday while i was pregnant,
that’s why your hair is so black and full.
i can’t imagine what gave him the impression
—i certainly didn’t bring it up
but after we were married he went and had it removed
without a word.
i never knew that mole, though i knew the others
which travelled along his jaw, down the jugular
his elbows and his feet pink and grey from the shower steam
more than a few made their pilgrimage
to my own skin, the freckles on the soles of
my feet when i hoist my calf up, an offering
to the razor.
there is nothing after this,
dad said to me, in the light so bright
it may as well have been
nothing, for your body to bear
no burden, no children, no weight nor time
and all that was borne onto us becomes
slowly undone.
we think so much of what is left when we are alive
that we invented a word to mean
it will never grow again.
we are accountants, always
taking stock towards a number unknown.
in heaven there is nothing ahead,
and nothing to cherish either.
we walk backwards,
a
stone’s
throw
end
halo-shaped zero
neither footsteps
nor shadow.
Living Proof
爸’s crow’s feet betray by stretching
so far into his temples they reach wider than the sun’s
own rays. His dry mouth ajar against the train seat
dark tunnel empty mosquito net
suddenly a cavity in the cliff face, so far
from the mouth that made love, breathed air
into my newborn heart.
This is what he will look like when the sand runs out, and
it’s running so fast I don’t believe it’s sand,
but I could taste nothing else when my mother left the table momentarily and he said,
her memory’s been like this more and more, now
and gravity points and laughs and beckons
me to start picking out the most beautiful urn.
He chose two stones to show me on the beach.
Look! Aren’t they so smooth?
and I remember
外婆’s body, plump pearl shell in the casket
cleaned of the life she spent cleaning,
the motherhood in her hands now
hand-me-down calluses to another daughter.
We’ll have to leave them here.
And so we left while the two stones stayed,
and so I said nothing when I should’ve said,
let the lines run off your face and find somebody else’s Saturn
to ring around ’til the end of time.
Don’t you know you are
supposed to live forever and ever and
ampersands
all the way down.
Isabel 玥 Li is a writer, illustrator, and new media maker with roots buried in the beaches of Tāmaki Makaurau. Their work appears in The Seventh Wave, The New River, Re-Draft, Sine Theta, and others. They laugh easily.