Amanda Sun

June 4, 1989.
record scratch.
Fire cracks open the sky like a cut glass chandelier.
Man waltzes with metal, worships boots, blade corroding palate.
There is change in the air, can you feel it?
Can you hear it?
piano melody. ambient drone.

Burning bus spins like CD.
Women sway to mangling metal.
The boy hastens away from the hall.
And there goes his father, on the back of a rickshaw.
distorted jingles. muffled crack.
Rickshaw driver lies, eyes open but not seeing red sky.

If your skills are up to par, chance a waltz with
A solid man in a helmet.
Flesh colored petals litter the floor.
Reverse fleckerl about the bodies.
choral diminuendos. reverberations.

Man faces metal, an embrace before a kiss.
He raises his arms.
violins swell. scratching intensifies.
Watch him fall into the arms of his steel lover, a lean and dip.
needle lifts. silence.

Amanda Sun is a writer and student based in New Jersey. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Persimmon Lit, and is an Iowa Young Writers Studio and Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop graduate.