[recall] – Kaixing Chou

did you know do
you know now
how tiny 

the city seemed from the window the night we left?
packing up memories i looked back just once to see the silhouette of the apartment rise against crayon skies, its mandarin-stained corners smudged with fingerprints salt time, who knows who 

new horizon was only horizon when familiar. august bursting into flames thwart the album the sun slipped over the skyline as I slammed the brakes — the city was alive but its heart was burning too late the moon rose in apple slices and constellations in milk candies over the remnants of a city that used to be so big. you drove 

forward and i stayed behind
building homes on the highway 
and feeling for a
pulse.

Kaixing Chou