Through Line

                                  "I'm sorry you can't have

an origin that holds you."
                                                          ~ Hari Alluri


Here's a new language to marble in your mouth;
a bowl of milk in which to dip it. You're told to hold 

your head in such a way to keep you from looking 
back, to keep from being distracted. In certain 

stories, those who give their souls believing this 
is how they become eternal can never change back 

into mortal form. But you love salt and sugar too much; 
and broth rich with shank bones and marrow. Shrimp 

paste, stinky fish sauce. In the pot, one eyeball 
comes loose from its socket in the head of the fish. 

Scoop it into your bowl. Suck on this chalky pearl 
because you want to remember the sound of church-

bells, cacophonous grammar of war as ships sail into 
the harbor,  unreeling chains leading to  this moment here.