This morning we jogged early
I was back in my flat by six-thirty
From my tenth floor view of the Charles River basin,
The morning was incandescently flushed by the peach-colored sun.
The transparent clouds seemed stylistically stained, artfully workshopped, which offered a softened, Tiffany glass effect wholly worthy of worship.

I can’t stop to admire it. I’m jamming things into suitcases.
Cramming things into boxes, giving things away.

I had a second interview Monday afternoon, for Johns Hopkins med school. They put the question to me:
“The semester starts in 18 days - can you do that?”
“Yes,” I replied, and just like that, I'm a Blue Jay.
Of course, I had to withdraw from the masters program but Harvard gave me a full (95K) refund - I think they’re more excited about my med school admission than I am.

I’m not afraid of discordant notes.
They change the landscape.
Take us to new emotional places.
Any major work is going to have them.
.
.
A song for this:
Hang on Little Tomato by Pink Martini
It's Amazing by Jem

some police poets
and their poetry

the eye of surveilance
the accusations

the instilling of fear
the threat of silence

Some say
poetry is just a war
between dark and good —
but only a poet knows
the weight of every
single letter.

Maybe not today,
not tomorrow,
but one day
a soul will
picture the boulder
that language carries.

Poetry can’t be just
black and white;
it is a prism,
reflecting
a whole family of colors.

I.
Lain down, unconcealed
toward the window
shoulder to hip -- a shadowy cursive
perhaps penumbra

II.
Seated, face in utter profile
standing, sorting laundry
washing dishes, guarding
the radiator

III.
Hair eschewed in
conjugated waters
double-exposed
roots and
foliage -- wisps
of sugarland
in subtext
their dark net
cast over a pearly bright sea
discovery left
to the imagination

Chain-link clatters,
her small pickup nosing through.
We’re here for a refrigerator,
her new apartment,
first time I’m meeting anyone in her family.
She’s beautiful,
nervous in the passenger seat,
told me her brother used to be a skinhead.
Now: better, odd jobs,
an Asian wife.

Sparse walls, half an office building
pretending to be a home.
A baby crawls on the kitchen floor.
Mei: tired eyes, lipstick,
business suit sharp for work.

Her brother just waking up,
empty malt liquor cans,
talking too fast,
about jobs, about not sleeping.
I’ve seen this math before:
people who struggle to get their life straight,
their day straight, their time straight.

The fridge is light as air,
a few condiments rattling inside.
We slide it out:
black square on the linoleum.
The square bursts,
roaches bloom and scatter at my feet.

Think: pick up the baby.
Mei already has her,
no expression,
like this scene’s happened
a hundred times before.

"We’ll keep the fridge outside,
- just a day,
use boric acid, no smell."
I smile when I say it,
like I’m just talking about a squeaky hinge.
Inside it, insects crawl around the compressor.
My girlfriend looks down.

Fifteen years from now:
A faraway post online,
in memoriam,
her brother beaten to death.
The baby, the family, now
gone from the map of my life.

Only the black square remains,
still crawling
in the back of my mind.