L cut my hair once on
a hot balcony in Kaohsiung.
We were far above everything.
The sun was finally sinking
down into Monkey Mountain.
It was your 24th birthday.
I hadn't gotten you anything.
I tried to call but the times
were off. I'm sure you were
just waking up in Omaha,
somewhere near where
we were both born. B asked
L to cut his whole beard off.
He looked like a baby in
a man's body. His face was
a kind of blue fruit I had
never seen before. Where
was I? Where was I going?
This new family. B like
a brother with a strange
new mouth. L, a sister
with my dead hair on her
sticky neck. After they
went back inside, I swept
some of our hair off the
balcony, into the unbreathable
air over all the heads of
all the people, over
the sleeping market
with the decapitated
pig hanging next to
its own head. My hair
went up and never
came down.