The world:
crystalline sky; white
light; glass enclosure.
The charm. Together,
culture encircling:
syllabic syntax; perfect
control; disciplined
practice. Family,
always. Grandmother
was the first victim of the Trauma we cannot predict, xe cannot stop:
prism bars.
darkling stimulus.
the glass-walled world became the latent encagement of light and color inversion,
xe thought we were each dying, all the charm, but only Grandmother:
purple flesh; stone
flesh; jade flesh.
no generational shattering,
only blank fire. Hotly, just
once. Once, and again, and
each time we lost another. Our charm, xyr family, dying off, the world a trap:
Grandfather. Sister. One
by one. A loss building,
until the prism light called xem, and xe felt in xyr feathers a refusal to die. To lead, to throw
xemself forward: bodily collision, glassing
hope. but only a tumble.
Traumatogenic light; whirling-
eyes; angel’s fingers. slipping, only: a crack
the size of a dream.