Poems by S. Qiouyi Lu
Two Poems
by S. Qiouyi Lu
"Budapest"
for Lianne
1
You dreamed of this place once
when you were a child, and Budapest
clung to the page of an old book.
That night, you prowled
through cobblestone streets,
through dusty libraries,
and you rested your hand
on a verdigris statue.
Time runs a line through your arms,
straight as the path
from your fingertips to your elbow.
The sun beats down on your shoulders;
roof tiles dig into your heels.
Distance
magnifies the poetry written
in the curls of her hair;
space
reveals the light gilding
her green eyes gold.
(When you were a child and Budapest
was the moon setting over a river,
you didn’t think that history
could be something small and intimate.
History to you
was occupations and battles and war;
history was not
damasked walls and sniper targets
and two people who
but for their convictions
mattered nothing to the world.)
You are only a spot against the sky,
but you still cannot afford
to let that sliver of gold
turn whole.
Time bends
and pauses.
2
Her absence
marks her presence.
You realize too late
that you did not catch glimpses of her—
she is the one
who caught you.
3
You meet in a hotel room.
Close combat was never your forte.
She plays you,
you play her;
this is a dance,
each step
a lie raised,
a lie broken,
and your mutual deception
is weapon enough for both of you.
You’re face-to-face
when you reach a truce—
she’ll let you live
if you let her live—
and what you don’t say
is that you’re not doing this
out of fear for your life,
but
out of want for hers.
4
It should end there, but it doesn’t.
Instead, a building explodes;
instead, you’re fighting alongside her;
instead, you meet again, this time at dusk,
and her language is your language is the way
tenseness melts is the way her lips meet yours
is the way the only word either of you needs
is yes.
And this should scare you.
This, the way she reads your vertebrae
like a blueprint; this,
how she infiltrates you, traces paths
along your jaw, crawls into
every neuron of you, makes you tremble,
makes you shiver, as if she’s
researched you—maybe she has—as if
she knows you, has known you—
and who’s to say she hasn’t?
But you lean into her anyway,
arrow bent by the wind,
two degrees off target,
and missing
has never felt so good.
5
Later, when your mind is not your own, when blue
your soul is blue, when blue your veins are blue,
when blue the edges of your pupils sing blue,
she flashes redder than sunsets balanced
on the crosshairs of a church spire.
You didn’t kill her that time.
You won’t kill her this time.
And sorry you want to mouth sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry for all this. That touch you craved
becomes a touch whose destruction you crave
and sorry the bands around your arm
are too tight and sorry your quiver
presses hard against your back and sorry
you quiver, you quake, and sorry, sorry, sorry—
She strikes you,
splits a red horizon across your mind,
and blue crashes against your temples,
scrabbles for a hold, spreads ten thousand wings,
beats oilslick napes into one shadow.
Your world goes black.
6
this is you this is you this is you
and this is a mantra beating
against your skull, trembling as if to fill you
with remembrance.
When she is this close, she fades into
the accumulation of familiar shapes.
The one you fell in love with
is the one who is sharp around the edges;
the one with you now
is the one whose boundaries blur,
who smiles, who knows when to free you,
whose words
return you.
She leans into you.
Light dips into the notch of
her cupid’s bow.
She pulls back the line of
your lower lip;
her hand cupping your face
draws your entire body taut.
When she is this close,
it’s only force of habit
that keeps your eyes open.
You never told her, but she knows—
of course she knows. Her eyelashes flutter
against your skin, paint sparks
along your cheeks, and maybe your eyes
aren’t so useless here.
You don’t need to know every detail of her
to love her.
The rush of green flooding your vision
as she looks straight into you
is enough.
"annihilation"
you were born on the 15
an endless stretch of desert
of desolation
your face a skull
you are here now
beside me
our bodies nestled against each other
like parentheses
like double yellow lines
I lay my head on your stomach
your body speaks only in rumbles
in prayers
in a language I don’t know
I smooth the dark thatches of hair
that hide your navel,
the twisted knot of you underneath
who are you?
your flesh echoes the screams
of generations
of a land robbed
of borders that crossed you
of a sun that set on you
on your blood
on the brown of your skin
who are you?
if I cut away your skin
remove epidermis
and yellow fat
I could take handfuls of your entrails,
unravel them like twine
revealing the interstate of you
please, my love
tell me your endless journeys
let me hear them from your raven tongue,
not from my fingers
reading every wet vein of your intestines
like an oracle
begging a silent god to speak
please, my love
talk to me
take the bone mask from your face
look at me with those burning eyes
who are you?
S. Qiouyi Lu writes, translates, and edits between two coasts of the Pacific. Their fiction and poetry have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, and Strange Horizons, and their translations have appeared in Clarkesworld. They edit the flash fiction and poetry magazine Arsenika. You can find out more about S. at their website, s.qiouyi.lu.
Inquiry
The following has been provided by the poet:
> Budapest
When The Avengers was released in 2012, I found myself captivated not by the grand battles or larger-than-life characters, but by a single exchange between the two ordinary humans on the battlefield, rescuing New York from an alien invasion with just pistols and arrows:
BLACK WIDOW: Just like Budapest all over again.
HAWKEYE: You and I remember Budapest very differently.
This narrative poem unfurled from there. How could two strangers go from being an assassin and his mark to being best friends? I focused on individual choice: “you didn't think that history / could be something small and intimate. / History to you / was occupations and battles and war; / history was not / damasked walls and sniper targets[.]”
Exercise: Think about one of your closest friends. What were the turning points that transformed you from strangers to confidantes?
> annihilation
Although the imagery in this piece is mythic and invokes ancient divination rituals, the impetus was something we all struggle with now: connecting with others. Sometimes, it’s difficult to verbalize our thoughts and emotions for fear of alienation or rejection, or for fear of being vulnerable. I wanted to capture that moment of hesitation in this piece.