My Love Was Bound in Red Silk / I Contain a Silence

By Lulu Sha

The first poem was originally published in an essay titled, “Red Stars Over Flushing: Edmond Jabes, Mahmoud Darwish, and Yellow Power.”

My Love Was Bound in Red Silk

My love was bound in red silk, 
Thrust out forcefully to claim long-forgotten aristocratic titles 
When the ships of old have 
Taken on the air for water
And it is blood they inhabit, not the 
Sweat falling
	On seas of rice
		Spilled on red canopies 
			Over the grinning bodhisattva’s golden palm 
			Falling into the incense pits
				Down the mine shafts
Into apothecaries and cabinet installations. 

The land from which I came 
	Has arrived with my mother who wears the 
	Pearls of her teacher’s teeth, which are nestled in the wet earth 
Where are my holy pillars? 
	I hang my shovel, my rifle, my tongue upon the altar of heresy
	In the city of gold which awaits me. 
I worship the false god out of fear. 

My heart years for the sunrise which 
Melts the frost on these aching muscles 
	For the cliff is now descending into the 
	Heart of the sea, and I must jump with my 
Brethren. 
My love and I are bound by the same red string, 
	Destined for the same grave 
In a world where speech and intellect travel no further than blood . . . 

I contain a silence which does not stop 
Sleeps as my childish heart does
Freezes the streets in daylight, locks the portal 
And paints the key on the underside of my lids
	which do not close. 
Only in the dark do I touch you, 
you who have not existed for three thousand years
Only in the dark do I feel the blister
of love rubbed against free will
	and knowing. 
How I long to leave the world behind
Step into the mirror, only to realize 
I had grasped blindly for the foot
Left planted on my earth. 

I Contain a Silence

I contain a silence which does not stop 
Sleeps as my childish heart does
Freezes the streets in daylight, locks the portal 
And paints the key on the underside of my lids
	which do not close. 
Only in the dark do I touch you, 
you who have not existed for three thousand years
Only in the dark do I feel the blister
of love rubbed against free will
	and knowing. 
How I long to leave the world behind
Step into the mirror, only to realize 
I had grasped blindly for the foot
Left planted on my earth. 

Process

I was partially inspired by Darwish’s poetry and his usage of certain motifs. Both poems deal with my own struggles to adapt to the numbness experienced after global catastrophes, and the changing landscape of social relations and identity. I wrote them during class when my professor was lecturing for too long and I had a sudden fear of wasting my youthful years. Later, the first poem inspired me to write a personal essay comparing the decline of Asian American radicalism to the works of Mahmoud Darwish and Edmond Jabes on the fluidity and fatality of identities and collective memory.