Daniel Liu
Bombardier
The moon still smoldering. Coal-throats in the open arms
of the guillotine. Here, a funeral. How careless the
steel-cut night was. Each bone crushed, each
curved vowel rotten on my tongue. The headstones
still pregnant with my name. The embers still sputtering
ghosts, still asking for prayers. My father folded over
my open mouth. And like clockwork, I ask: isn’t this charred earth
just a graveyard? Aren’t we all looking for our own
names? The sound of bombs is just a lullaby
for dead men. War-stained cochlea. Crimson scattered
everywhere. This country was never ours. This wildfire
was never this bright, never this frigid. How it swallows me whole.
An ash-rimmed bullet lodged in my lungs, leaving cinders
in my words. My father tells me a son is only a son if he
can fight. Because birth is an act of violence. Because
the space between the knife and its reflection is non-existent.
Infested home. Slaughterhouse concerto. We will all be
long dead when the world ends. We will all hold our fathers
to their last words. The price of bloodthirst is two men
with their blind eyes rolled back. The spine is just another
place to hide. Another elegy. Another warm corpse. Cornered
like animals, light escaping us both. This
is salvation.
of the guillotine. Here, a funeral. How careless the
steel-cut night was. Each bone crushed, each
curved vowel rotten on my tongue. The headstones
still pregnant with my name. The embers still sputtering
ghosts, still asking for prayers. My father folded over
my open mouth. And like clockwork, I ask: isn’t this charred earth
just a graveyard? Aren’t we all looking for our own
names? The sound of bombs is just a lullaby
for dead men. War-stained cochlea. Crimson scattered
everywhere. This country was never ours. This wildfire
was never this bright, never this frigid. How it swallows me whole.
An ash-rimmed bullet lodged in my lungs, leaving cinders
in my words. My father tells me a son is only a son if he
can fight. Because birth is an act of violence. Because
the space between the knife and its reflection is non-existent.
Infested home. Slaughterhouse concerto. We will all be
long dead when the world ends. We will all hold our fathers
to their last words. The price of bloodthirst is two men
with their blind eyes rolled back. The spine is just another
place to hide. Another elegy. Another warm corpse. Cornered
like animals, light escaping us both. This
is salvation.
Biography
Daniel Liu (he/him) is a writer in Orlando, FL. His work appears in Kissing Dynamite, Hobart After Dark, National Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is the founder and Director of inksounds.org, an online interdisciplinary arts gallery. His debut chapbook, COMRADE, is forthcoming with fifth wheel press. Find him on Twitter @danielliu_1 and at daniel-liu.carrd.co.