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SNOW WHITE PAINTED HER LIPS WITH MY SPERM & IF THE SEA IS HER MIRROR & MY BELLY IS HER SKY IN WHICH YOUR OIL RECOILS, YOUR COCOA BUTTER HOVERS, YOUR PIGMENT MY CUPID’S BOW
You give plutonic birth to death
Fading heavily in your graveyard
The wars, the hungers, the infant birth defects
I travel the night in my labyrinth, chthonic nightgown
I wilt the widows
I wither the orphans
Demeter wandering above like deistic priests
Her daughter revolutionizes my personal
Diary of genocide
Wheat and winter
Calories and protean proteins
Diploid grass mourning the Bronte sisters in the wind
I’M GOING TO HOLD YOUR MONEY HOSTAGE IF YOU ARE NOT NICE TO ME & ACCOMMODATIONS ARE 2X $$ DURING X-MAS[1]
This is canh chua shrimp &
Mực [hấp hành gừng]
It’s pretty beat up
And, I don’t know what national security mortgage is
I am over bleeding
About 1/2 cup of menstrual blood every half an hour
They will overnight it
Remotely
That’s the day I close
How is your heart?
Are you watching? We cancel each other out of internet
Disregard silver ear buds
They usually sleep downstairs
[1] Prompt: A poem using text messages sent to a family
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT BORROWS MY FACE FOR READY PLAYER ONE, HOW EAGER, HOW WILLING HALLIDAY’S DEATH SERVED MY SIMULATED ARCHIVE WHILE MY MEMORY HIDES OUT IN A SORRENTO NIGHTCLUB, WHILE DESTINY EXISTS IN PARZIVAL DRIVING BACKWARDS INTO SPACE MEANWHILE NICOLAS CAGE
Becomes
Two-faced
In las vegas
Hairy chest like a roof made of
Black grass, black hay
Your
Poor money management
Your bald eyebrows
Spreading eagle on my television screen
The first woman i ever loved
Thought you were so sexy
She was Chinese
VI KHI NAO, 2022 Lammy Award Winner of the Jim Duggins, PhD: Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, is the author of 17 books, including: A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories, which won FC2’s 2016 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize; the novels Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016) & Swimming with Dead Stars (The University of Alabama Press, 2022); and the poetry collection The Old Philosopher, which won the 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Her work includes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, chapbooks, films, plays, cross-genre writing, media art, and collaboration: https://www.vikhinao.com