corium encryption Claire He
yī. the paper cranes splay their wings across the northern sky. upon their folds i carve my mother tongue, an amalgamation of pointed brushstrokes and fevered birdsong. to fold is to compose. to write is to deconstruct. and what remains once you have stripped the paper to its heart? èr. sometimes, when they are threaded between my fingers, they do not take flight. wǒ xiǎng yào, wǒ ài, wǒ yǒu, and those words are bare, core exposed, drowning like mercury. my accent is one of a northern woman, sutured by the english lexicon. artificiality like taped wings. sān. pollux is the brightest star in gemini; my dreams are twin to bruised origami; and skin is more easily replaced than time. my tongue quivers upon needlepoint, brush to lips where girls once kissed radium. is it like atlas? i ask, because three thousand cranes are far from a hemisphere, yet devour my collar like carrion. sì. hang the entrails upon constellations so ink is blood is collateral, and year upon year when your mimicry of hollow-boned angels unfurls the night sky, sew paper like skin and pare a wish before your eyes. three flightless wishes taste like incense. your aftertaste is cyanide. wǔ. to take a plum’s flesh and stain tissue paper. the pit of a wish is unoriginal: the first thing i learn is to write them in layers of violet prose, through rose-tinted lenses—mandarin draped in morbit—and when you unfold them, remain empty. the words scrawl in vigenère on virginal lips. tell me: do i crush the cranes like jasmines beneath my palms?
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