J Xuange

A CURIOUSLY ALIVE AND LONELY BODY

Some say you can never be truly exiled from yourself.

Crowds filed past as thoughtless as blown leaves
and tugged at my shirttails and elbows.

My earlobes grew freakish and long.

The wall was left standing when the building was razed
and weeds flourished where floorboards and doorjambs
had once been imagined.

The place is fragrant with hazards and abandon.

Sometimes the police come on tips of a vagrant,
the beams of their flashlights crisscrossing the dirt
with luminous Xs as they tiptoe around me.

My shoes rotted
and mushrooms bloomed through my toes.