Human

after Richard Siken

The earliest rays of sunlight silhouette your hollow frame,

dawn cracking open the world before You: an angel whose back

was turned (a gamble for privacy), not

breaking but delicately examining

the twisted

bones you lay before yourself & scramble for meaning

in. Will you cough up

your soul and swallow a

heart for promise that I will find you a body you could love, or merely

like? For now, just cling to your naked limbs (the way newly minted

twigs hold spring flowers.)

Jun Fan

Acrostic poem of Siken’s line from “Visible World”:

The dawn was breaking the bones in your heart like twigs.