Xiadi Zhai

Descaled before you, I’m all scab
& groveling towards your backyard bone

installations of performance art, excused
to sing happy birthday on & under command

in exchange for renewed vows on a needle-
strewn beach just outside this city. I must be

getting sick. When I lock my bike outside,
the U always ends up around my ankles

& I call you for help, patellae split & curb-
edge wet. Once, when I got struck

by that stickered minivan in Vermont,
you told me that the other side of a puncture

is a pretty burst of confetti. Do you remember?
It was the first compliment you fed me & no number

of stitches could’ve stopped me from staying
in your hotel room paid by the hour, sealing

envelopes between cocktails, cut tongue
disinfected. Music from the bar downstairs along

with syncopations in the cracking of your joints,
polyrhythmic hi-hat tapped against my temple by the nail

of your middle finger, telling me to smarten up, settle
down, face east & stay on my knees. I am only

just now getting into this business of looking
at human faces. The person I’m thinking I’ll

marry has one of squashed summer fruit
paving sugared streets down my wrists & forearms.

Xiadi Zhai is from Boston, Massachusetts. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has recent work in or forthcoming from Bennington Review, Court Green, and Quarterly West, among others.