» Poetry

Two Poems

Jess Yuan

BIOSPHERE

The bowl of Los Angeles dreams of stretching over itself
            a skin, a bubble
 
of conditioned air. Strung with light, the city bleeds
            and swells
 
like a mosquito bite itching up the globe, inflamed by that little siphon.
            Whining up
 
and down the highway for miles, each oil derrick nods agreement
            with the others.
 
In the city itself, they are hidden behind hollow facades
            lining the road
 
to the corporation’s glass shell. How does the glassworks installer
            resolve the seam
 
where one adjoins another? Two curves are held together
            with structural silicone.
 
A scab hardens two sides of flesh into place.
            I keep picking
 
where its texture invites a fingernail. Two thousand
            man-hours per year,
 
two million man-hours per millennium. How many man-hours
            to start over?
 
 There is no starting over.
 

CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION

after quitting, every day
I thank heaven I’ll never
 
have to see another building again
nor fear them hanging over me
 
except when I walk
through this world tied together
 
by so many other hands
and when I enter and sleep and possess
 
each adjacent item as mine
then all of it hangs over me
 
a single bulb but at least
the naked filament
 
has a hard enough time
lighting what it is
 
to reveal anything else
at least the empty stage
 
can sometimes turn away
after telling a good joke
 
with a straight face
while the breeze enters
 
as a new neighbor
and then the storm.