lance to drain

what is a man
—but
blood and sack
pricks of light
gone with the water
gone with the fire

I have not the
courage to splash
acid on the
undisfigured

and how she wields
the blade hewn
of smoke
thumb along the
inside edge
to mean

we will all fold down
to the ice fingers
—take three
down to the
banks
a kind of
creation in
unmaking

First published in the Winter/Spring 2020 issue of The Southampton Review

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HAL Y. ZHANG is a lapsed physicist who splits her time between the east coast of the United States and the Internet, where she writes at halyzhang.com. Her memory-and-loss chapbook AMNESIA will be published by Newfound, and her collection Goddess Bandit of the Thousand Arms is forthcoming from Aqueduct Press.

Pre-order the chapbook here.