Thia Bian

Love Poem Where Every Rhyme Ends in Suburbia

I.

I have this dream where
we buy a dog. An American
dog. In the daytime we leave
him out under the sweet dark of
the crabapple tree / every
plastic afternoon we get married
again, carve
our ankles into the earth. Our house
hums haunted, hums
left-handed lonely / eggshell
sideboards, open mouth.
In the evenings we curl
around the question-mark
of body, punctuated breath. Across
the street, the light spills
like vinegar. & winter,
yes, winter the color of
a dog’s tongue, our
American dog. 

II.

Our dog leans out
the window of our oil-green car: our
American dog all yellow
teeth, crooked lungs. We drive
past each bluster of billboards–HELL
IS REAL ARE
YOU READY–& wrap ourselves
in the illusion of a private grief. An ocean
the way a famine is an ocean,
a locked door is
an ocean. Our
American dog smells no salt
on the air. He snaps at
the wind & licks
his chops. 

III.

Our American dog learns
our children’s necks. He follows
them into the kitchen, out
of their baby teeth.
He will think a language
deserves to be gnawed at. We fall
asleep on couches
sitting up / our children skate
along salt-smudged roads.
They learn to live
in willful increments.
In the bedroom our
American dog lies under
our bed. He’ll rest his soft
skull, his eyes like
dropped coins. In
that false dark he thinks
about chewing. 

IV.

Our American dog dies
the way dogs do, his breath small
and antlike. We bury him under
the crabapple tree, stand
not quite touching each body
of light. The body, the light.
The creeping black line
of air, both of us insured against
the largeness of living. We watch
it together: the narrowest city
in the world. I imagine
taking your hand.

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Thia 尔雅 Bian is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Jiangsu, China. She recently graduated from Princeton University, where she studied comparative literature and global health; she currently lives in Boston. Her work can be found in The Adroit Journal, The Columbia Review and elsewhere.