BJ Zhou​
​

Off the second floor balcony of a fire-ridden Xinjiang apartment
building, mid-jump

And in the morning, moths tugged at our ironclad windows.
You spoke quietly about how good it was, this life,
as the rust on your wheelchair thrashed my palms.

I walked to the stairwell and I saw
the baby, a soft yolk dangling from
cobwebs in the ceiling. That’s how I knew I was dreaming.

Three pieces of lettuce sat in the rice cooker, steam rising to thread
your crow-thin hair, like pink fingers.
When you said war
flocks of wild geese set flight in your eyes,
dove through your vintage fog.

The rotten blankets from underneath my bed
gnawed at the heat, sloshing like egg-white.
You said sometimes your stomach felt hollow,
and it was sickening sometimes, like you were the pink son
you couldn’t let out.

At the bottom of the stairs, my dangling brother asks,
couldn’t, or wouldn’t?

Another featherlight winter
slipped down the hollow between mute boughs
and fell to the ground, dead.
Breathe in my ear, fly, fool.

–
In Xinjiang, a building under quarantine policies was left to burn as
authorities failed to reach incapacitated individuals in time.
The One-Child Policy, enforced in China from 1980 up until 2015,
mandated that all family units produce only one child. All other
offspring were to be aborted.

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BJ is a poet located in the East Coast. They enjoy filmmaking, hiking, and the work of Paul Celan and Wong Kar-Wai.