AT LAST STATIC HAS A NAME
Tell me again about the radio, the radio that forgot
it was a radio and grew roots
that glowed into the apartment carpet until we
heard people consoling each other below, until
they realized they would never get used
to consoling each other
and quietly pulled
away while soaping dishes in a row
and refusing to look.
The screen in the next room is bursting
with white teeth this scene in the American
movie, disturbing nobody to suicide. Bundled
fingers to mouth
and this building must be bottomless. We hear us
sink past planks that make
the ceiling into a simple party in the space
between midnight and the hours after, each stomach
is filled with movement
and the effort of going nowhere. A record
skips. We look for a while down the stairs. A few
feet away someone looks out a window
at all those lights.
Done with that plate?
The faucet’s stream illuminates
some water's history and you pull away
like a light in an old tunnel.
Ray Hsu is a poet, activist, and scholar. He has published poems more than thirty-five journals across Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. Ray's book, Anthropy, won the 2005 League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Award. He teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
