Paper by kelly zen-yie tsai

paper 
by kelly zen-yie tsai 

i love tupac shakur and william 
shakespeare equally.  i love 
alice walker and courtney love. 

i love poems crossing 
my consciousness like the 
opening credits of “star wars” 

(or stretches of ocean 
crashing below 
grey-bellied seagulls) 

i love the solitude of wrapping 
myself in blank paper, covering 
my fingers to pluck a 
thorn from its wound – 

i use paper to sop up blood as it spills, 
inking kaleidoscope blots of 
grotesque beauty
	from unhonored pain 

rows of letters 
trace subterraneans 
unknown in me

ones unregistered on my skin,
their bulk lopes like a long necked 
monster wading in the deep 

each poem, a photograph 
snapped by the child whose faith 
cannot be torn from what lies beneath 

	she camps out yawning
	past the midnight hour

	blinks her eyes
	unsure of what she sees 
	
	she widens the aperture 
	slows the camera’s speed

	shutter falls and captures 
	before she nods off to sleep