Today I pulled

my grandmother’s body

from the mouth of the river,

unpeeled milkflowers and seawater

from her hair, and knelt over her

the way we bend over our own reflections:

to drink.

Nainai, ni ren shi wo me?*

still, never answer, no answer:

the answer was the smoke filling her chest,

the hymn half-sung on her lips,

the wisterias like exit wounds

through her back.

She could have been anyone’s grandmother,

but I collected her ribs anyways,

and in her calcified eyes,

my tongue swallowed the rain.

Tomorrow I will return with two birds and my neutered tongue,

offer them to the river spirits, ask for a bled body back.

They will take me, bathe me in my jar of bones—

I will wear them as if they are mine, to drape myself

with ghosts, to touch an unlearned year,

shedding my skin like a water lily.

*Grandmother, do you remember me?