Jenny Chu

After Dark

I relive the scene like an alcoholic—
the bullet undressing, how roughly
it was pressed to the left of your neck.
They said I had taken it well,
that I had bathed in calm,
like I was a faucet defying the odds.
Even you were never afraid of death,
only the before. The before: neon
red parking lot, the choreography
of an untamed man, hands in places
we dared not imagine. The warmth
transmitted as thin nightmare.
The evening before, you asked me
what to do with all this night,
what parallel universe I wanted
to dive into next. Ours—silent
in all the ways you never wanted
to become. At the funeral,
I tossed pebbles in circles and
paid homage to you, the gone rain,
the panic of a barking dog.

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Jenny Chu is a writer from Dallas. Her poetry has previously appeared or is forthcoming in in Pithead Chapel, BRAWL Lit and Boundby Poetry Journal. She really loves Swedish Fish.