Apocalypse Now
BY EILEEN HUANG
After Kathryn Hargett
somewhere, father pulls nine-millimeter shells out of his gook mouth, coated in gunk placenta. midsummer and the bayou pulls its damp over the city, clamps its teeth over a row of zipperheads. a helicopter palms venom into a forest and I do not call this violence—only a necessity, a caution. somewhere a man asks if I spit. I answer: no, but I can choke. // wildflowers alone on a road. my wife told me not to pick them // From 1910 to 1940, Angel Island, located near Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay, served as an immigration station and a de facto detention center for over 175,000 Chinese immigrants. For hours or months, Chinese detainees were interrogated and left in prison-like conditions. // father’s death is silent and unending. he becomes and unbecomes—ragdoll unraveling into yarn. // on a lonely rock, i am the bird that holds the most grudge. my revenge: // Interviews determined if early immigrants could remain in the United States. They consisted of highly specific questions designed to elicit incorrect answers: “What is the floor of your old house made of? How many entrances did it have? Which direction did the front entrance face?” Or, “What were the names of the roads and bridges you passed on the way to a neighboring village?” // train platform, dusk. a man tells me that I will love him long time. my country dips its barrel into father’s throat, forces him to swallow. // filling the sea with pebbles one by one // In 1970, after the station had been closed for thirty years, an island ranger uncovered sets of poems on the walls of the barracks, written in the traditional Tang style. The poems had been coated over with multiple layers of plaster. // in a dream my roommate is interviewing me except the camera is a glass box: dance dance into my mouth when I open it no language comes out only guttural only a face unseen an animal
