It is not like writing in blood:
no vein to open, oath to break.
Just look how it shudders
when I touch my pen to it,
its infatuation
with circles,
their escape to the shore
smuggling my text out.
And the illustrations full
of landlessness: fluvial
blues, a
rippling
banner of imperial Chinese yellow,
those clouds that float face down
searching for a bottom,
someplace to
plant their feet.